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“ZOMBIE (LIVE FROM THE RIVIERA THEATRE) (FEAT. BILLY CORGAN)” Today, GRAMMY® Award-winning artist YUNGBLUD releases a special live recording of his hit single “Zombie,” performed with The Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan at Chicago’s legendary Riviera Theatre. The intimate performance marks the only time YUNGBLUD and Corgan have performed their reimagined version of “Zombie” together live.
Watch “Zombie (Live From The Riviera Theatre) (feat. Billy Corgan)” HERE. Listen to the track HERE.
Recorded in Chicago on July 30, the performance took place during a landmark week for both artists, one day before YUNGBLUD took the stage at Lollapalooza, performing the penultimate set ahead of The Smashing Pumpkins’ Friday night headline performance.
Originally released on YUNGBLUD’s chart-topping album IDOLS, “Zombie” quickly became one of the defining songs of the era, earning a GRAMMY® nomination for Best Rock Song. The song is now the fastest-streaming single of YUNGBLUD’s career and has accumulated over 200 million total streams. The track later took on a new life when YUNGBLUD joined forces with The Smashing Pumpkins to reimagine the song.
Produced by Matt Schwartz and Billy Corgan, the collaboration brought Corgan’s unmistakable guitar sound to a song deeply influenced by The Smashing Pumpkins, bringing the relationship full circle, alongside drums and guitar from The Smashing Pumpkins’ Jimmy Chamberlin and James Iha, resulting in a fully reimagined version of the original composition.
The studio version was accompanied by an official music video directed by Charlie Sarsfield, starring YUNGBLUD and The Smashing Pumpkins. Watch the official music video HERE.
The reimagined studio version was met with critical acclaim, with Rolling Stone highlighting how Yungblud “digs deeper into the quiet devastation of ‘Zombie,’” while KERRANG praised its “beefier, grittier but still crushingly emotional” sound and Corgan’s vocals. NME similarly celebrated the collaboration’s ’90s makeover and The Smashing Pumpkins’ signature “colossal wall of sound.”
The release arrives amid a whirlwind year for YUNGBLUD. Following the release of his chart-topping, GRAMMY®-nominated album IDOLS, the British artist has continued his completely SOLD-OUT IDOLS World Tour, bringing the record to fans around the globe. He has also continued to bridge generations of rock through a run of collaborations, including One More Time with Aerosmith (LISTEN), which topped the UK Albums Chart and Billboard’s Top Rock Albums chart.
Watch YUNGBLUD and Billy Corgan perform “Zombie,” Live From The Riviera Theatre HERE.
Listen to “Zombie” by YUNGBLUD and The Smashing Pumpkins, HERE. Watch the original music video HERE.
IDOLS, the latest album from YUNGBLUD is out everywhere now.
ABOUT YUNGBLUD
Yungblud is fast becoming one of the world’s key musical voices of his generation, blending influences from Rock and Punk to monumental effect. His arena-filling performances have cemented his place as one of the world’s most electrifying musical exports. He has received several accolades, including the MTV EMA’s, the O2 Silver Clef Award for Best Live Act, and most recently, a GRAMMY® Award for Best Rock Performance for “Changes (Live From Villa Park) Back to the Beginning.” Yungblud received three nominations at the 68th Annual GRAMMY® Awards — Best Rock Performance, Best Rock Song and Best Rock Album — becoming the first British artist in history to earn three nominations in the rock categories in a single year. Known for his electrifying stage presence and boundary-pushing lyrics, Yungblud continues to challenge conventions while inspiring fans worldwide with messages of authenticity and acceptance. Yungblud debuted his own curated festival BLUDFEST and released his first book, the instant No. 1 Sunday Times Best Seller, You Need to Exist: A Book to Love and Destroy, on Penguin Books. Born in Yorkshire, England, the 28-year-old multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and performer first picked up a guitar at age two and began writing his own songs at age 10. Following the release of his self-titled EP and his full-length debut, 21st Century Liability (2018), his subsequent albums Weird! (2020), Yungblud (2022) and Idols (2025) all debuted at No. 1 on the UK Official Albums Chart. His lyrics have resonated with millions around the world, earning him meteoric success. He has since accumulated tens of millions of followers, 8 billion streams, sold 3 million albums to date and over 1 million concert tickets. The release of his critically acclaimed, chart-topping album IDOLS marked the start of a landmark new era, alongside the Paul Dugdale-directed feature-length documentary YUNGBLUD: Are You Ready, Boy? — a raw and powerful portrait of his journey so far. In 2026, Yungblud continued the IDOLS era with IDOLS II and completed sold-out tours across the UK and North America, bringing the album to life for fans on some of the biggest stages of his career.
ABOUT THE SMASHING PUMPKINS:
The Smashing Pumpkins are one of the most iconic, iconoclastic, and influential bands of all time, shaping alternative music and culture. Since forming in Chicago during 1988, the group have sold over 30 million albums worldwide and garnered two GRAMMY® Awards, seven MTV VMAs, and an American Music Award. Their catalog includes seminal offerings such as the platinum Gish [1991], the 7x-Platinum Siamese Dream [1993], the 11x-Platinum Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness [1995], the platinum Adore [1998], and the gold Machina/The Machines of God [2000]. Rolling Stone cited both Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness among its “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” It would also be impossible to envision alternative music and culture without their signature iconography such as the idyllic album artwork for Siamese Dream, the black Zero shirt, the laissez-faire bliss of the “1979” music video, the gothic metamorphosis of “Ava Adore,” or the multi-dimensional live shows that sell out worldwide to this day. 2018 saw The Smashing Pumpkins unveil SHINY AND OH SO BRIGHT, VOL. 1 / LP: NO PAST. NO FUTURE. NO SUN. and launch the immensely successful Shiny and Oh So Bright Tour, which packed arenas. Maintaining this momentum, the band released their eleventh full-length double album CYR [2020], representing yet another evolution, and more recently, ATUM[2023], the sequel to 1995’s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and 2000’s Machina/Machine of God. The band’s 2024 album, Aghori Mhori Mei, written in the immediate aftermath of ATUM, sees a return to form for original members Billy Corgan, Jimmy Chamberlin, and James Iha, and harkens back to the band’s early 90’s canon; where guitars, bass, drums, and spiking vocals ruled. In 2026, The Smashing Pumpkins returned home to Chicago to headline Lollapalooza before kicking off The Rats in a Cage Tour, currently underway across North American arenas.
