New Stereogum Interview

[Raskolnikov]

[Raskolnikov]

Some interesting bits in there, for sure - worth a read.

http://www.stereogum.com/1698954/ins...pe/interviews/

Love that he's rounding out the Teargarden "60 songs" with these next two albums. Probably for the best, really.

All told: great interview with a dude that I still respect, even if it's for current reasons unknown sometimes.

[butthurt]

http://i.imgur.com/hrGigEo.jpg

[Trotskilicious]

dye him green and put some tusks in and ta-dah he's an orc

[lionheart0]

That was a great read. Thanks for posting it.

[butthurt]

Corgan: before 60 unreleased demo, try. Once again easy to sing in the demo. Some of the actual quality is not complete. We are all one Teargarden box set. Or, as a new century tonight soon I as seen almost started period 21 Smashing Pumpkins Teargarden ok travel show travel project. It is a great case. Goodbye, I am the end. See start Teargarden article emotional work if not exciting. Jimmy, the band left. This whole thing about ' why would continue what name? "Rigamarole, so it seemed: it is going to do this ok. Here facing my fear of my artist, it seems to be: to speak or leave only one ok? What to keep? What is "tonight, tonight" threw a play called the Smashing Pumpkins rock - Billy Corgan. We are all resolved in the life of this bullshit. Fake reality shows are now essentially wrong and take the course. Every aspect about the really very practical Teargarden do not shy away from it.

[Butt Pope]

I likes the 7 paragraph breakdown of Astral Planez

[Gooch]

Trotskilicious dye him green and put some tusks in and ta-dah he's an orc

LoL its True!

It was a good article, much more "revealing'' than even that '20 questions' BS on the O site they did recently.
Why cant BC address his fans directly with such candor?

[milk-plus]

Because he hates us?

[soniclovenoize]

Pretty good interview... he's not pointing fingers and shows some accountability on his part, which is really uncharacteristic.

[vbshlofbvgos]

I enjoyed how he said that "he wouldn't put that on him" in regards to Tommy Lee touring with the Pumpkins. Also chuckled at him saying that people act as if Machina doesn't exist.

And of course I agree with him that once the (unfair) verdict came in that Adore was a piece of shit there was no recovering from it.

[Elphenor]

I don't get how Billy can still be whiny about Adore and Machina. It's amazing

So everyone of your albums didn't go quadruple platinum or whatever, no one is like "Oh? Only TWO of the most celebrated albums in rock what a loser"

Music media may make fun of the dude and stuff but I rarely see any articles that don't praise Corgan's achievements as a songwriter

[Spaceboy88]

Originally Posted by Elphenor

I don't get how Billy can still be whiny about Adore and Machina. It's amazing

So everyone of your albums didn't go quadruple platinum or whatever, no one is like "Oh? Only TWO of the most celebrated albums in rock what a loser"

Music media may make fun of the dude and stuff but I rarely see any articles that don't praise Corgan's achievements as a songwriter

Not only is Corgan one of the most prolific song writers of his generation, the amount of songs that were fucking amazing within that catalog is unreal. As has been said, Pisces Iscariot, a B-Sides album basically, puts to shame 95% of bands A-Sides.

What has hurt Billy with the media has been his whining about the industry and placing blame for the band's diminishing mass appeal to conspiracy theories and thinking everyone's out to get them. Also, making statements about himself being disrespected among the greats in music history doesn't sit well with elitist fucks at Pitchfork and other online outlets that the millennial generation grew up with, so they look at him as being just a whiny bastard and that taints his image of being a true rock pioneer, especially to those that are just discovering the music after the fact.

[slunken]

Originally Posted by soniclovenoize

Pretty good interview... he's not pointing fingers and shows some accountability on his part, which is really uncharacteristic.

He says the new book is going to be about accountability, which he is experiencing for the first time he says. Isnt that a recovery process?

[Elphenor]

When you go around talking about how great you are it rubs people the wrong way, yeah
It has nothing to do with "elitists" or pitchfork.

The truly great don't have to talk themselves up, it's in their art and their attitude.

[slunken]

Music business is show business

[themadcaplaughs]

One of the best interviews he has done in a while. Just a few points that stick out in my mind...

-Could this be the quickest turn around for Billy to start disregarding a Smashing Pumpkins album. He's already done it with Zeitgiest and Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, but those were both relatively after the fact. In 2011, Corgan was writing about how the songs on Oceania were the best he'd written since the mid-1990s, and that once we heard it, we would finally understand why he brought back Smashing Pumpkins. Zeitgeist and the first part of Teargarden were just the lead up to Oceania. By 2012-2013, he still seemed to be standing by the album, but said it was just the build up to even bigger things. Now we're getting, "oh it was a cool album I guess but whatever..."

-Also, Billy makes a big point about how disappointing and disheartening it was to not have the Machina albums come out as he'd envisioned them and have them hang in limo forever as this "unfinished album." Yet, he seems to be giving half-ass answers to the few people who really do care about the Teargarden concept. So these albums are part of Teargarden, and we might someday get a box set. It's all just a silly mess.

[Gossamer]

really good read

[wounded]

the teargarden thing is very convoluted.

Good interview though. He sounds honest in his answers.

I wonder what the pumpkins legacy would be if MCIS was not a double album and he just put out four albums based on that materials that probably would have made everyone happy.

I've always appreciated that the pumpkins have "eras" for better or worse and you can actually identify what era a song was probably written in.

[ButtHash]

The past three or so interviews have been very good. I really hope this fresh perspective on making art is here to last for him. Good ish.

[davin]

the stereogum writer is a fucking idiot.

"(If I could rewrite my Smashing Pumpkins list from last year, I have a feeling I’d rank it above Gish and Pisces Iscariot — aside from Zwan, it is perhaps the most underrated and wrongfully maligned work of Corgan’s career.)"

-- so many things wrong with this statement. he/she deserves to take a beating.

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by Spaceboy88

What has hurt Billy with the media has been his whining about the industry and placing blame for the band's diminishing mass appeal to conspiracy theories and thinking everyone's out to get them. Also, making statements about himself being disrespected among the greats in music history doesn't sit well with elitist fucks at Pitchfork and other online outlets that the millennial generation grew up with, so they look at him as being just a whiny bastard and that taints his image of being a true rock pioneer, especially to those that are just discovering the music after the fact.

except that pitchfork has been very complimentary of SD and MCIS and gave a charitable review to Oceania. In fact they gave them high marks for the re-releases, put both SD and MCIS in their top 100 of the 90s or whatever and often praise them in reviews about bands who kind of carry that sound

pitchfork is a lot of things but it's getting tiresome to see it come up everytime someone bitches about bill's legacy or to use it as a catch all for "hipsters" or whatever. most of the time these people, like yourself, have absolutely no knowledge of what pitchfork is or what it thinks beyond "hipsters"

bill ruined his own legacy, don't blame fucking pitchfork

[Trotskilicious]

or music elitists either, i had this break down for fuzzball: the fact that you're too good for all this "hipster shit" and hoard your stupid 90s sacred cows makes you an elitist as well

[workingdogv1]

CORGAN: It’s more just like … you say something simple like, “Hey, where’s that reel?” and then somebody comes back and goes, “It’s missing.” [laughs] And you don’t know, because you haven’t looked for it in fifteen years, you don’t know where it went. Currently, on MACHINA, I think there’s about seven reels missing. As in “probably stolen.”

Hmm. Possible explanation for Billy's anger over the leaks? Could also explain why some of those tracks were missing from the MCIS release. Not to say that this is necessarily reality, he could very well have given out copies quite some time ago and forgotten their existence.

[soniclovenoize]

Originally Posted by slunken

He says the new book is going to be about accountability, which he is experiencing for the first time he says. Isnt that a recovery process?

Yep it is.

[bye june]

Originally Posted by themadcaplaughs

Billy makes a big point about how disappointing and disheartening it was to not have the Machina albums come out as he'd envisioned them and have them hang in limo forever as this "unfinished album." Yet, he seems to be giving half-ass answers to the few people who really do care about the Teargarden concept. So these albums are part of Teargarden, and we might someday get a box set. It's all just a silly mess.

Machina is good though

[zbeast78]

Originally Posted by Trotskilicious

except that pitchfork has been very complimentary of SD and MCIS and gave a charitable review to Oceania. In fact they gave them high marks for the re-releases, put both SD and MCIS in their top 100 of the 90s or whatever and often praise them in reviews about bands who kind of carry that sound

pitchfork is a lot of things but it's getting tiresome to see it come up everytime someone bitches about bill's legacy or to use it as a catch all for "hipsters" or whatever. most of the time these people, like yourself, have absolutely no knowledge of what pitchfork is or what it thinks beyond "hipsters"

bill ruined his own legacy, don't blame fucking pitchfork

pitchfork is not alone on that anyway, there's been an overall softening on corgan's legacy across the board with critics. im actually surprised at how much love corgan gets from music sites/ publications/ etc these days. the stereogum premature evaluation of oceania almost tricked me into thinking it might be good.

[soniclovenoize]

Originally Posted by bye june

Machina is good though

Yeah that's why I can always find five copies at a used CD store.

[Elphenor]

I think if one album was made between machina 1 and machina 2 and the productions were mixed somewhere inbetween, I'd consider it MCIS level

There truly was some genius stuff made in that era, but both the Machinas are plagued with filler.

[Araneae]

Originally Posted by zbeast78

pitchfork is not alone on that anyway, there's been an overall softening on corgan's legacy across the board with critics. im actually surprised at how much love corgan gets from music sites/ publications/ etc these days. the stereogum premature evaluation of oceania almost tricked me into thinking it might be good.

With the way these things cycle around, that was kind of inevitable given that the kids that were listening to SP in the 90s are now the ones old enough to be writing as senior music critics. SP aside, the critics are having their 90s golden era moment, which inevitably come with a lot of over-romanticizing and exaggeration.