Smashing Pumpkins are back with an ambitious new album and summer tour, including a show celebrating SPIN’s 25th anniversary, and Boston indie pop outfit Passion Pit have heralded Billy Corgan’s return by covering his band’s gorgeous Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness single “Tonight, Tonight.” SPIN.com has an exclusive stream of the track — listen below!
The cover song was recorded as part of Levi’s new Pioneer Sessions project, which finds the clothier selecting hot artists to cover classic tracks that influenced their music. It’s safe to say “Tonight, Tonight” left quite the impact on a Passion Pit mastermind-singer Michael Angelakos, who was just seven years old when the Pumpkins’ benchmark album was released in 1995.
Passion Pit offer a minimalist take on the original’s orchestral sweep, and rebuild it with a different sort of drama. Its intro now features acoustic guitar plucks, not soaring strings; its chorus is awash in keyboard swells and dance beats, not charging guitar and driving rock drums; and its vocals are delivered in a helium-high coo courtesy of Angelakos, not Corgan’s nasal snarl. It’s Passion Pit taking a decisive piece of alt-rock history and giving it another sound for another generation of music fans.
Listen to Passion Pit’s cover of “Tonight, Tonight” below, and to download the song visit Levi’s Pioneer Sessions, where you can also score MP3s and video of artists like the Shins, Nas, Dirty Projectors, and She & Him covering songs influential to their careers.
LISTEN: Passion Pit, “Tonight Tonight (Smashing Pumpkins Cover)”
