Corgan Kicks Q101 While It's Down, Discusses All Thing Past And Future Pumpkins

Photo by Kristin Burns

Despite the station contributing to the rise of The Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Corgan gave a rather honest appraisal of the demise of Q101 during an interview with Greg Kot last night on Chicago Live!.

While we've given the man a fair amount of grief it's refreshing to hear someone else not only not eulogize the decline of alt-rock radio, but rail against the nostalgia cash-ins of '90s revivalism. Corgan also addressed the changing line-up of The Smashing Pumpkins and his decision to keep the "band" together instead of going under his own name as a solo act. And for once he doesn't come off as a total jerk while, surprisingly, making total sense!

Listen to the whole conversation.

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By Tankboy in Arts & Events on July 22, 2011 11:20 AM

Comments [rss]

Renita Marjan

Funny, he was very gracious to the Q101 DJs on twitter when the station was shutting down... now he's dissing them? (I haven't actually listened to said podcast yet.)

Tankboy

No, he's dissing station management. I'm certain he bears the DJ staff no ill will.

Renita Marjan

Ah, that makes much more sense. Cause the management did sorta suck.

fergmelk

I'm sorry, Tank, but you must have listened to a different Chicago Live! podcast than I did, because all I heard was Billy being his self-absorbed arrogant prick self. Granted, I couldn't stand to listen to more than the first 4 minutes of it....

Tankboy

The whole thing is pretty rational. He doesn't change any of his public stances but at least there's a little more in there to add context to why he acts the way he acts ... beyond just being a self-centered dick.

fergmelk

I went back and listened to the whole thing. I still say he's an arrogant prick for not a whole lot of good reason other than an overdeveloped sense of self-esteem and entitlement. "Because I can" does not seem like a whole lot of additional context to me.

fergmelk

I don't mean that to imply that he's not perfectly entitled to play whatever he wants/refuse to play the 90s Pumpkins "hits" his fans want to hear for whatever reason... but the fact that he has fans that spend money on recordings and shows *IS* the reason he's still got a job. He might want to consider catering to them once in awhile. Or is playing to your fans also "selling out?"

ChicagoD

"rail against the nostalgia cash-ins of '90s revivalism"

I don't know what that means, so I assume it means Billy doesn't want me to buy mp3s from Mellon Collie.