Background and Concept
After the Adore tour ended in the second semester of 1998, Billy Corgan immediately began to work on new material, debuting new songs as early as October of that year. That same month, the four original band members convened, and it was decided that Jimmy Chamberlin would rejoin the band, and that a final album and tour would be mounted before the group disbanded permanently. 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."
From there, a story was conceived revolving around a rock star named Zero (based on the public persona of Corgan) hearing the voice of God, renaming himself Glass, and renaming his band The Machines of God. Fans of the band were referred to as the "Ghost Children", which has now become a term for Pumpkins fans.
Corgan started recording demos in late 1998, and the band entered the studio in early 1999.
Read more about this topic: Machina/The Machines Of God
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