Was it ever real for Billy?

[Ram27]

[does it even matter?]

back in the old days when he was ostensibly putting all this passion and energy and emotion to his lyrics and guitar playing and everything, did he actually feel any of that? ever? the courtney love rants, the suicidal ideation? or was it all a lie? was it like an actor performing a script?

does he actually enjoy playing music?

he seems like such a curmudgeon. every amp setting and every chord engineered exactly to make some sort of triple-subversive point to the fans.

on instagram he'll answer gear questions but only if it's about a record he deems sufficiently underrated, otherwise the person gets blocked

[enthusaroo]

i think it was real in the past

just now with Billy older he's just the Donald Trump-esque "promoter" more than anything else.

[houseofglass11]

C’mon dude of course it was real. You can’t be that insanely prolific and not enjoy making music to some extent. If you hated it it’s just as easy to not do it. I understand the cynicism with the new stuff but no need to be cynical in a revisionist way and to start questioning past glories. He had a huge level of fame and money come at him after MCIS and I think he was just forever changed and jaded by that.

[wHATcOLOR]

r u feeling ok Ram27?

[wHATcOLOR]

the key reason why the new stuff sucks is because we all hear the lack of sincerity that was infused throughout in the early stuff

[wHATcOLOR]

i mean, there are plenty of reasons for it. but germane to your question, that

[Cool As Ice Cream]

maybe it's time to step away from the internet for a bit, ram.

[VoxUpDoc]

Yes and no. I think there was authenticity and real emotion put into some of the 90's lyrics and playing. Or maybe he was more convincing with those aesthetics and when his material was stronger?

Zwan onwards has been Bill "The Art of The Deal" Corgan.

[enthusaroo]

art of the deal Corgan

[incubator]

I think he's always been a 100%er. Then and now. Even if something has been "fake" or contrived he threw himself 100% into it and made it emotionally real through commitment and will.

[Gooch]

I’ve said it before but I gotta think that the “problem “now is the simple fact he is working on his music nowadays like it’s a job. 9-5, work on big riff from 10-12, lunch, track drums at 1, come up with lyrics by 4 because song has to be finished today by 5pm. Who can be artistic and creative and imaginative and passionate working in those constrictions?

[Disco King]

I literally hear from most successful creative people that if you want to create shit, you have to treat it like a job and schedule time to do it, instead of just waiting for "inspiration." If you just wait to feel motivated, you'll just be the kind of person who always says "I'm going to start a band," but never actually gets around to doing anything because you're too "busy," "tired," whatever (i.e. me).

[GreenDogGlynis]

Billy works plenty, but he seems to think he's above criticism and that will hurt the work. It's like when one of our fellow Netphos recorded some unfiltered electric guitar over Cyr and it sounded so much better. But Billy insists on not having stuff like that on the record and its to everyone's detriment

[johncg]

working from the notion that he has strong personality disorder traits:

yes, it was real.

and, no, it wasn’t real.

a person with strong, persistent behavioral and affective components of what we might call NPD or BPD is capable of real emotion and real empathy. but they are also deeply cut off from reality in the way that healthier people experience it. they have great difficulty seeing outside of themselves and truly understanding or caring for others.

in a way, it is tragic. many such people do have a deep down ability to love and empathize for others but it is straightjacketed by the fear-based survival mentality of a traumatized 3-5 year old. literally.

i think everything billy has done has been real: his ability to tap into deep primal emotions, his ability to connect with others, for sure. but also his inability to manage a career on even the most basic level, and his inability to maintain reciprocal and empathetic relationships with both those closest to him and his own audience.

for what it’s worth i have some clinical training on these things. if that makes any sense, i’m glad. if not, no sweat. just my take!

[MyOneAndOnly]

Did billy always suck?

Was i listening to terrible music for the last 30 years?

Do I have free will?

[jakobtheliar]

Why did I literally feel magic the first time I heard in the arms of sleep, in my bedroom in 1995?
Why can't I recapture that weird night sound it starts with?
Was the moment real or imagined

[jakobtheliar]

Originally Posted by MyOneAndOnly

Did billy always suck?

Was i listening to terrible music for the last 30 years?

Do I have free will?

This as well.

I've been thinking about this since I realized the other day that the main 2 chords in mayo are the same as the first chords of in bloom.

[MyOneAndOnly]

the old music was good. The quality of bill's music peaked in his early 30s. That's not unusual. That happens with most artists. The fact that his middle aged work is so aggressively terrible doesn't make him unusual.

It's not us. It's him.

[MyOneAndOnly]

There are very few singer songwriters that continue to make relevant or even good new music into and past middle age.

[houseofglass11]

Originally Posted by johncg

working from the notion that he has strong personality disorder traits:

yes, it was real.

and, no, it wasn’t real.

a person with strong, persistent behavioral and affective components of what we might call NPD or BPD is capable of real emotion and real empathy. but they are also deeply cut off from reality in the way that healthier people experience it. they have great difficulty seeing outside of themselves and truly understanding or caring for others.

in a way, it is tragic. many such people do have a deep down ability to love and empathize for others but it is straightjacketed by the fear-based survival mentality of a traumatized 3-5 year old. literally.

i think everything billy has done has been real: his ability to tap into deep primal emotions, his ability to connect with others, for sure. but also his inability to manage a career on even the most basic level, and his inability to maintain reciprocal and empathetic relationships with both those closest to him and his own audience.

for what it’s worth i have some clinical training on these things. if that makes any sense, i’m glad. if not, no sweat. just my take!

Very well said. And as someone who grew up with a mother with borderline it’s very accurate to what I experienced with her.

[Rairun]

Originally Posted by Disco King

I literally hear from most successful creative people that if you want to create shit, you have to treat it like a job and schedule time to do it, instead of just waiting for "inspiration." If you just wait to feel motivated, you'll just be the kind of person who always says "I'm going to start a band," but never actually gets around to doing anything because you're too "busy," "tired," whatever (i.e. me).

Yeah, the issue isn't treating it like a job exactly. You need to set time aside to work on your craft, and you need to show up if you hope things will come together. The bizarre thing about Billy is that when things aren't coming together, instead of just fucking around, experimenting, trashing what doesn't work, and so on, he imposes business-like limitations on himself and releases the stuff anyway - which makes no sense because he can afford not to. Or maybe he thinks they ARE coming together, in which case... good for him? But I'm not interested.

[johncg]

Originally Posted by houseofglass11

Very well said. And as someone who grew up with a mother with borderline it’s very accurate to what I experienced with her.

i appreciate that. and same, actually.

i think a lot of us here had similar experiences and it’s why billy’s bullshit is so offensive to us but we have still tried to forgive him for it and have all gotten sucked into his gaslighting more than once.

if that makes sense.

[GreenDogGlynis]

Originally Posted by johncg

working from the notion that he has strong personality disorder traits:

yes, it was real.

and, no, it wasn’t real.

a person with strong, persistent behavioral and affective components of what we might call NPD or BPD is capable of real emotion and real empathy. but they are also deeply cut off from reality in the way that healthier people experience it. they have great difficulty seeing outside of themselves and truly understanding or caring for others.

in a way, it is tragic. many such people do have a deep down ability to love and empathize for others but it is straightjacketed by the fear-based survival mentality of a traumatized 3-5 year old. literally.

i think everything billy has done has been real: his ability to tap into deep primal emotions, his ability to connect with others, for sure. but also his inability to manage a career on even the most basic level, and his inability to maintain reciprocal and empathetic relationships with both those closest to him and his own audience.

for what it’s worth i have some clinical training on these things. if that makes any sense, i’m glad. if not, no sweat. just my take!

I don't think its true that Billy doesn't have the ability manage his career. The guy fronted a mega rock band who at one time had an unmatched output in terms of both quality and quantity, and who toured the world many times over and delivered live. If that's not managing a career successfully then I don't know what is. If I could take a shot at it I would say that Billy is unique in that he is one the very few people in the entertainment world who has succeeded purely on their own(of course this includes the the whole band) talent. How he looks, what his personality is like, what he represents to the culture or whatever has nothing to do with why SP was successful. They produced great music and had the ability to communicate on a personal level. Meanwhile, you have guys like Eddie Vedder, Kurt Cobain, Chris Cornell, and Marilyn Manson whose image and charisma are part of what draws people to them. It doesn't mean they don't make great music too, but Billy was able to do it with only his band's music and nothing else. While this is one Billy's best qualities, it also seems like he is very insecure about it. As we all know, all he talks about now is his media image, what he projects to the public, what they project on him, what he means to the culture, etc. I always thought this was pointless to talk about because he's just not a celebrity or a symbol in that sense.

[Disco King]

Originally Posted by jakobtheliar

This as well.

I've been thinking about this since I realized the other day that the main 2 chords in mayo are the same as the first chords of in bloom.

Also, in the song "Tonight, Tonight," Corgan plays a C major chord. The hack. He stole that chord from the Beatles' classic song, "Let it Be." He thought we wouldn't notice if he downtuned his guitar a halfstep so that he's actually playing a B major, but it's plainly obvious that he wrote it as a C major and slightly changed his homework so that the teacher wouldn't notice.

Not only that, but you know those guitar-playing hands that he acts so proud of? He didn't earn those, either. He inherited his hands FROM HIS PARENTS, WHO ALSO BOTH HAVE HANDS.

Absolute fraud.

[run2pee]

Originally Posted by Disco King

Also, in the song "Tonight, Tonight," Corgan plays a C major chord. The hack. He stole that chord from the Beatles' classic song, "Let it Be." He thought we wouldn't notice if he downtuned his guitar a halfstep so that he's actually playing a B major, but it's plainly obvious that he wrote it as a C major and slightly changed his homework so that the teacher wouldn't notice.

Not only that, but you know those guitar-playing hands that he acts so proud of? He didn't earn those, either. He inherited his hands FROM HIS PARENTS, WHO ALSO BOTH HAVE HANDS.

Absolute fraud.

Lol

But doesn’t the half-step make it a Cb (or B#) not a B chord? Maybe paranoid can straighten it out for us

[brothahi4L]

This guyeorks too much on several things at the same time.... no wonder that everything is mediocre.....

As long as the band doenst jam together again and working out new songs together.... they wont have a good album....

Cyr is a bolzi solo album.... is iha still in the band... he doesnt seem to give a shit....

And honestly i am sick of the reissues ....... they were once a good band, but now it is d(e)ad rock granny party

[VoxUpDoc]

I don't think it's necessarily that Billy isn't committed to his craft or can't manage his career. The release strategy was pretty solid in terms of merch and singles.

It's the creative vision of the album, and execution, which is way off.
I don't know who Cyr is for.
It's a mystery.

[Ram27]

it's for the sickos on his insta who buy into all his bullshit [literally/figuratively]. and the....beyond stereotypical rockstar sycophants he surrounds himself with

it's a very....poignant niche of humans in my mind and it freaks me out every time.

i keep remembering one of those behind the scenes videos from like...whenever it was JC came back at first. in the background you can barely hear jim and the bassist discussing the dynamic approach of porcelina, while in the foreground corgan is being all flirty with these two assistants or whatever bringing him vegan tea

but not even like cute flirty, it's like middle aged man with cloying young women

[incubator]

BIDEN STOLE THE B#

[NovaFritz]

Originally Posted by incubator

BIDEN STOLE THE B#