Машина/Машины Бога: Альбом Smashing Pumpkins 2000 года

2000 studio album by the Smashing Pumpkins

Machina/The Machines of God is the fifth studio album by the American alternative rock band the Smashing Pumpkins, released on February 29, 2000, by Virgin Records. A concept album, it marked the return of drummer Jimmy Chamberlin and was intended to be the band's final official LP release prior to their initial break up in 2000. A sequel album—Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music—was later released independently via the Internet, and in highly limited quantities for the physical version. Following the electronic and industrial rock elements established by its predecessor, Adore, Machina again proved controversial to the band's fan base and failed to reconnect them with chart topping success. However, after the relatively brief Adore tour, the new line up with Chamberlin and the former Hole bass guitarist Melissa Auf der Maur mounted longer international tours that returned the live incarnation of the band to a guitar driven hard rock style.

After the Adore tour ended in the second half of 1998, lead singer/guitarist Billy Corgan immediately began to work on new material, playing new songs as early as October of that year. In the same month, the four original band members convened, and decided that Jimmy Chamberlin would rejoin the band, and that a final album and tour would be mounted before the group disbanded permanently. "If you want to know what Jimmy brings back to the band," Corgan told Q, "then listen to Adore and this new record back to back. It speaks for itself." According to an August 19, 2014 interview with Ryan Leas, Corgan explained, "I was thinking like, you know, what the Beatles did with Sgt. Pepper’s. Why can’t we make a really different type of record? So that was my thinking going into it." Corgan envisioned a lengthy concept album in conjunction with a musical theater approach to a tour, based around the idea of the band playing exaggerated versions of themselves, as the press and public seemed to view them. He later explained, "the band had become such cartoon characters at that point in the way we were portrayed in the media, the idea was that we would sort of go out and pretend we were the cartoon characters." Corgan originally wanted Machina to be a double album, but Virgin Records was not interested after the disappointing sales of Adore.

Machina was released as a single album on February 29, 2000, with a bonus disc, Still Becoming Apart, available at certain stores. A video was made for "Stand Inside Your Love", the planned first single, in late 1999, but at the last minute, "The Everlasting Gaze" was issued as the album's first promotional radio single in December 1999. "Stand Inside Your Love" was released as the first commercially available single on January 21, 2000. "I of the Mourning" was also released as a promotional single and received limited airplay. "Heavy Metal Machine" was issued as a promotional cassette but was not distributed to radio stations. On March 9, the band went on the Thursday edition of @MTV Week at Broadway Studios in New York City for a half hour live TV special. During the broadcast they performed "The Everlasting Gaze" as well as "I of the Mourning" after an online and call in voting competition between three songs from Machina. The special also featured Carson Daly interviewing the band members and online chats with the band, and an interactive online video for "The Crying Tree of Mercury". On May 23, Corgan announced on KROQ FM that the band would be breaking up at the end of the year. The video for the final single, "Try, Try, Try", directed by Jonas Åkerlund, was released on September 11, 2000, but did not receive airplay in the US due to its graphic content.

The album is scheduled to be reissued, this time resequenced as a double album with the Machina II material as was originally envisioned. The original co producer Flood will be involved with a complete remix of all the material and sequencing into its original order as a two disc concept album. Part of the restored concept album will be a suite simulating a live Machines of God concert, possibly with crowd noise added, with a mix inspired by Kiss' Alive!. From July 2015, the reissue's release was put on permanent hold due to legal troubles with the record label. Corgan has said he has spent a lot of time on this and wants it to be released, but the legal issues need to be resolved first. In August 2018, Billy answered an Instagram Q&A about this. The question was "Will the Machina reissue ever see the light of day?" He answered "Just signed legal settlement today on that. So yes". Corgan announced in later Q&As that the reissue will feature completely new artwork and will not reuse any of the original Machina artwork. As of the January 28, 2021, the NME reports that the Machina reworking is complete and Billy Corgan states that it will contain at least 80 songs.