UPDATE: Corgan addresses his viral magazine cover:

In case your wondering, all this PAWS fame has gone to Mr. Thom and Sammi’s head. They’ve gone from complaining about food every 60 seconds to every 30. Plus they fielded a call from a reality show producer. Unreal.

Ha.

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2000’s Machina/The Machines Of God was the last album the Smashing Pumpkins released before going away for a while, the one where Jimmy Chamberlain came back and Melissa Auf der Maur took over for D’Arcy Wretzky on bass. It doesn’t boast the critical adulation and cultural resonance reserved for Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie, but boy did I love it when I was in high school. (Judging from the overblown reception for the decent-at-best Oceania, if Corgan released a song as good as “The Everlasting Gaze” or “Stand Inside Your Love” today, people would lose their fucking minds, even if they’re essentially lesser rewrites of “Zero” and “Tonight, Tonight” respectively.) Machina had lots of conceptual trappings and was originally intended as a double-LP, but after Adore’s poor performance Virgin forced the Pumpkins to pare Machina down to a single disc. After the band broke up, Corgan rolled out an elaborate online marketing campaign including narrative writings called Glass And The Machines Of God, an alternate reality game, and eventually an album of unreleased material called Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music.

Now it looks like the double-LP Corgan always had in mind is going to happen. Here’s what we know so far as quoted from a post on the Pumpkins’ site:

Looking forward to the eventual reissue of a restored and recompiled MACHINA, work has begun on transfers from the original 24 track tapes, as well as a host of select live shows. The effort will be unprecedented for Smashing Pumpkins et al, as Billy Corgan has indicated plans to put the album not only in its original and intended double/triple album sequence, but has designs on commissioning new remixes of all materials as well. The intention he says is clear: to present MACHINA in the original form in which it was written; or in his words, “As a theatrical narrative.

“Other possibilities of coalescing the story exist: including the addition of extant materials such acoustic alternates, re-contextualized soundtrack pieces, and use of spoken word to create an immersive experience.

“I’m also not opposed to asking current artists to participate, singing songs as such on the compositions meant for other characters’ voices,” Billy adds. “Finishing what the band started so long ago, and we just didn’t have the strength to end.”

In other Pumpkins news, the internet went wild this week when Corgan appeared in street clothes hugging his two cats on the Summer ’14 cover of Paws Chicago’s magazine as depicted above, something that would have seemed utterly impossible back when Machina came out. Corgan has raised a lot of money for the No Kill humane organization over the years (it’s where he adopted his cats). You can read the full issue here if you’re so inclined, preferably while enjoying these excellent Machina singles out of context.