to be fully available Atum: A rock opera in three acts, the latest release from the Smashing Pumpkins had to wait almost six months. The opus, which as the title suggests is divided into three parts, was first released on November 15th, a second on January 31st and reached its final form yesterday when the 33 songs were combined into a single album .
A complex strategic plan for the continuation of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness And Machina/The Machines of God which, however, threatened to fail almost immediately due to a hacker, as bandleader Billy Corgan revealed in an interview Klein/Ally Show.
Corgan said a hacker obtained nine songs (“including the catchiest songs”) from the band during the mixing and mastering phase. “Somehow they let us know that a hacker had these songs and would not publish them for money,” explains the musician, “so we contacted him, paid and prevented the songs from being put online in advance.” . Corgan brought in the money from the transaction himself: “He was a mercenary who had hacked someone – I don’t want to say who – and had other material from other artists. He wasn’t a Pumpkins fan who wanted to post the songs on Reddit.” The FBI was also involved in the case: “They gave us some information that enabled the FBI to track him down.”
However, Corgan remained vague on this last part in particular: “I don’t know how it ended. I know this hacker had crazy stuff like some cult songs by bands preparing reissues. I don’t think anything was posted online so I think it was captured in time.”
