In what has to be one of the more bizarre and most thoroughly entertaining interviews with anyone we’ve read the year, Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan weighs in on EDM in an article published today in The Guardian.
Though his senior rock-god counterpart Tom Petty earlier in the year soundly denounced DJ culture, calling it “plastic computer music,” Corgan, who is promoting his “band’s” latest album Monuments to an Elegy, sees the genre as giving rock music a run for its money.
Here’s Corgan’s exchange with writer Tim Jonze:
There are lots of new bands who are influenced by the 90s sound …
I would disagree with that. I don’t hear that. The mythology [of that era] right now is irrelevant to combat the pop menace in America right now.
Who is the menace?
I’m not naming names, come on. But it’s immense. People can get rosy and sentimental about something, but if it can’t compete it doesn’t mean anything. Meanwhile, EDM is kicking everybody’s fucking ass. Look at the numbers the DJs are making! They’re kicking rock bands’ ass. And we’re sitting here talking about an era from 20 years ago because it’s misty in people’s minds. Meanwhile there’s 60,000 people in a field watching a guy with lights behind him.
So why not embrace that culture yourself?
Be more specific.
Why not make an EDM record?
You’re being too simplistic and you’re insulting my poor heart. (Laughs.) OK, I’m being funny with you (4). But look at the charts. I went on the other day to see the 200 top-played singles in America, and there were only two [alternative rock bands] in the top 200!
Does that upset you?
No. That’s analytics. If you were starting a bagel shop and you realised nobody was buying bagels would you still open a bagel shop?
Elsewhere in the piece Corgan rails against reviews, “false narratives” and the NME. Happy reading!
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