A swan song on the Internet

The Smashing Pumpkins have had a history of pioneering new styles of music: pushing the envelope and taking chances for the sake of art and their fans. In 1995, the group effectively changed the face of alternative rock music with the double-disc album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Now, in the twilight of their existence as a group, the Smashing Pumpkins have come through once again in the face of adversity. Yet unlike past victories, this time the band delivers not to record companies, not to music as an art, but only to its fans - the people who have made the Smashing Pumpkins into a success story. The embodiment of this devotion comes in a not-so-small package called Friends and Enemies of Modern Music (known also as Machina II), a follow-up to this past February's Machina/The Machines of God.