Why did the Smashing Pumpkins break up?

They sucked.

GFE!!!!!!!!!!

the remnants are in a new band: Pumpkin Pie

Corgans ego, darcys smack addled ass, chambelins smack addled ass, keyboardist jonathan melvoin od'd and dies on tour, iha having no creative input and 2 subpar albums that didnt even go gold

corgan creates zwan with chamberlin on drums.....sales were dismal.

corgan then goes solo....1st single was a COVER of the bee gees. brutal album. failed to sell 100,000

corgan now gets smashing pumpkins back together....chamberlin on drums is the only other pumpkin involved----isnt this zwan?

darcy supposedly wanted to model and loved the drugs. no one has heard from her since.

chamberlin put out a record last year or 2 years ago which was what youd expect from a drummer who cant sing. its no foo fighters

iha is producing americas new album along with ryan adams and a few others. hes had a reletively low key post pumkpins career but is well respected. 2 average solo albums released.

corgan is known more for his weekly cubs recaps during the summer lately as his poetry book was brutal.

the last tour they went on they went on by themselves, without an opener. they produced some of the best alternative rock ever during the 90s but that genre is no longer with us and the pumpkins continuing to produce isn't so socially desirable. i don't think the kids understand them and the pumpkins arn't the kind to rehash, they would produce something new to them and i don't think poeple are really looking for it.

the pumpkins are supposedly in the studio right now making another album. but i think it is just corgan and chamberlain. no way they are getting d'arcy. iha is iffy at this point.

Didn't the asian guy become a World and Olympic Chmapion hurdler?

both Adore and Machina went gold. Adore sold just over 1 million, isn't that platinum? or is that 10 million. or is 10 million diamond? I don't know. Zwan was weak, Billy's album sucked, but Jimmy's was pretty good.

also - the bee gees song wasn't the first single

Iha put out one solo album

they've sold somewhere around 20 million albums altogether, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness accounting for about half of that.

The Zwan record didn't sell well. However, it wasn't terrible. In fact, it was better than the last 2 pumpkins records.

Jimmy Chamberlain made a huge difference with the pumpkins. Without him they didn't have the same direction. Albums like Gish, Siamese Dream and Melon Colie, were great, largley due to his input. He's a very good drummer and would probably make an outstanding producer.

The drugs are really a non-issue. Very few good rock bands exist without drugs, and when they stop taking drugs their music tends to suffer. There are exceptions to this, but it's mostly true.

i agree on the drugs part.....good to a certian point. But when all that shit went down in nyc with melvoin and chambelin that was the beginning of the end.

the zwan album wasnt bad and i actually listen to it from time to time.

good correction on the 1st single of billys album....the 1st single did blow though.

i didnt think the last pumpkins records went gold but its possible since theyve had 5 more years to acrue sales. each record sold considerably less than the previous though.

just checked their myspace and they are planning on doing UK summer gigs but they wont say who's in the band other than chamberlin/corgan.

The whole band was basically Corgan- the supporting cast of a druggie drummer, a druggie bassist, and a drug OD'd keyboard player couldn't possibly stay together for too long.

Corgan is an egomaniac even by rock star standards. Only Jewel's poetry is worse than Corgan's.

That being said, they were the BEST.

Any band with "Smashing" in their name is going to break up sooner rather than later.

Saw Doctors are much better.

Some of you have some of the info right, but if you want to know most of the pertinent facts to your questions......here you go:

http://www.artistopia.com/the-smashing-pumpkins

(and as others have pointed out, Billy pretty much was the band, almost as much as Trent Reznor was/is NIN. I mean, Corgan composed virtually all the songs and lyrics, sang virtually all the vocals, and on Siamese Dream played virtually all the guitar parts (not to mention some bass and drums). Billy was the band, and if Smashing Pumpkins went downhill, or can't be as good as they used to be [since they are apparently coming back in some form], it's because Billy stopped writing as good as songs as he used to AND the music landscape changed. It's not because the bassist was on drugs or because they can't get James Iha to record with them, though he would certainly help somewhat. But it's all on Corgan to produce something credible again. We will see if he can do it. And speaking of Trent Reznor, HE's still doing writing SOME good songs at least. So it's possible)

I dug up this little blog... I always got a kick out of it.

It was James! On the Metro! With a cold shoulder!

http://billycorgan.livejournal.com/2004/02/17/

Can't Tell Asians Apart wrote:

Didn't the asian guy become a World and Olympic Chmapion hurdler?

Yeah, they should've marked him on the arm to keep track of him.

Funny how nobody mentioned it might be due the fact that Billy is quite possibly the worst singer in music history.

Then again, that never stopped them from becoming popular in the first place. Guess that's why

urbandictionary.com wrote:

GFE!!!!!!!!!!

B.M.E. I presume?

Except for as visual distractions, I didn't think anyone in the Pumpkins except Corgan mattered.