Billy Corgan thinks rock has been “purposely dialled down” in culture: “All I know is I saw the gravity shift”
Billy Corgan feels rock was purposely dialled down within culture, so that rockstars didn’t have as much of a voice.
The Smashing Pumpkins frontman shared his thoughts during his The Magnificent Others podcast, where he even mentions his theory of the supposed involvement of the CIA. In the video, Corgan argues that rock was replaced by rap in late 1990s, and now a similar shift is occurring with pop being “completely dominant”.
READ MORE: Billy Corgan believes The Smashing Pumpkins were the first grunge band “that started to grow up” musically
He says [via MusicRadar], “I think, and I will say it overtly, I think that rock has been purposely dialled down in the culture. Again, this gets ‘wizard behind the curtain,’ right? Somebody’s gonna say, ‘Well, how do you know who was the wizard behind the curtain?’ All I know is I saw the gravity shift.”
He continues, “If you were at MTV or around MTV in 1997 or 1998, suddenly they decided rock was out when rock was still very, very high up. And it was replaced by rap… Their standards and practices immediately shifted, so now things that weren’t allowed were suddenly allowed.
“People were waving guns. Some people assert that the CIA was involved in all that. Again, above my pay grade, but I saw it happen. I did witness it happen. Of course, great music came out of it,” he clarifies. “Qualitative things and great artists came in, but there was this overt shift. I saw it happen. And then now, rap seems to be waning in terms of its cultural influence.
“Pop is completely dominant. Rock is probably the most dominant ticket-selling thing in the Western world, and yet there’s almost no representation of rock in culture. So, why do we have that schism? I think they purposely dialled down the ability of rock stars to have a voice in the culture.”
Another hot take from Corgan comes from a recent Guitar World interview, in which he argued that technical proficiency when it comes to guitar isn’t as impressive as it used to be.
“If you’re going to play a lead in an alternative rock band in 2025, what are you trying to say? No-one’s going to care that you can play good, because there’s fifty 10-year-olds playing Eruption on YouTube,” he said.
“There’s nothing actually that impressive about somebody being able to play the guitar at a decently high level anymore, so I think it’s the expressive quality that makes it interesting. So I’m more interested in creating a feeling than showing off.”
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
