crumbsroom wrote:

I've actually never even listened to The Chronic before

I probably won't tell you anything you haven't heard before, but I think Dre's production and inspired use of P-Funk samples makes it an essential listen. The lyrics definitely lean into the noxious in a more contrived way than Straight Outta Compton or Ice Cube's work from that time, but I think there's enough (lizard-brained) humour to still make it an enjoyable listen.

I'm sure I'm not being entirely fair to Tupac or Dr. Dre.  But they're the big dogs, and if I'm making a case against gangster rap, it's easier to use them for illustration than to punch down on the likes of Kingpin Skinny Pimp or Master P.

Jinnistan wrote:

Jinnistan wrote:

Thankfully the Pumpkins managed to make this masterpiece shortly before becoming completely insufferable.

Here's a crazy thing.  I saw this clip of Howard Stern interviewing Billy Corgan this week (don't know why, maybe Corgan is promoting something), and it made me feel a lot less mean for constantly harping on the fact that the Pumpkins kinda fell off the cliff after Siamese Dream.  It should be emphasized that there's a lot of bands both before and afterward who may have had some good stuff but quickly fell off the cliff.  Plenty of folks who maybe have one decent LP if they're lucky.  The problem with the Pumpkins is that they were better than that.  Both of their first two LPs are gold, all of their early singles, "Starla", "Honey Spider", "Drown".  Lull, Peel Sessions, Earphoria, Pisces Iscariot.  There was nothing they touched in those early years that wasn't brilliant.  So the dramatic descent of their falling off has always irked me even more for that.  It's a baffling mystery of lost inspiration, a frightening portent of lost potential.  What happened?  Drugs?  Cobain?  Sheer ego run amok?

Because of the era, I always suspected that there was some typical music industry shenanigans.  1995 was the year when the so-called alternative boom imploded, and this has been blamed on a lot of things (drugs, Cobain, sheer ego), but most substantially there was a major shift in the music industry.  Some of this shift was directly related to the above - Perry Ferrall has said that Cobain's death was the moment when the record labels decided to reign in the artists and 'get serious' - but mostly it was purely about money.  MTV collapsed as a venue for new music.  The "Modern Rock" radio format had transplanted 'alternative rock' stations, giving more airplay to non-independent voices like Bush, Green Day, Korn, Matchbox 20, Sugar Ray, etc.  Lollapalooza was hijacked as a haven for the likes of Metallica.  Pearl Jam lost their war with Ticketmaster.  And a number of bands - I could mention the Chili Peppers chief among them - chose to lean heavily in on their commercial formulas and take the money.  So for many years, I assumed this is exactly what happened to the Pumpkins as well, and apparently I was at least halfway right.





This clip has a rather stupendous moment.  Stern is asking Corgan about all of the negativity during this muddled era, and I assumed they're talking about people like me.  The kinds of fans of early Pumpkins who were sorely disappointed with their post-95 output, and just confused about what had happened.  But the jumping off point here isn't Melon Collie.  Stern uses as an example the hit song "Disarm" from Dream, again about as classic as Corgan has produced.  Corgan then responds with a revelation:

Can I explain something to you that I think you're after?  OK?  I'm going to follow your logic.  I'm the guy who wrote that song.  I'm the guy who arranged those strings.  I did that song when I was about 25 years old.  And it was a big hit song.  Not once after that song did anybody in my life - anybody - pull me in a room and say, '"Can you give me more of that".  Not one time.  Not one time did anyone sit me down and say, "Can you write me more of those songs?"  They were like, "Give me more of the ones that sell sausages".  You understand?  "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" - ["despite all my rage, I'm still just a rat in a cage"] - was my saying, "You want me to be this rat in a cage?  Here I am!  Here's the dumb beat, here's the big rock chorus.  And it was a big hit, and they were like, "Great!  Give me more of that!"  And to this day - what was that?  28 years ago? - To this day, the fans (god bless 'em) and the critics are still asking for more of the "rat in the cage" guy.  They ain't asking for ["Disarm"] guy.

I am absolutely stunned.  I am shocked that all of the fans like me were unable to get through to Corgan.  I am appalled that his recollection was after making "Disarm", "you gotta read the review about how much you suck and how horrible you are, and you turn around to your management and they tell you, 'You're doing it all wrong, and you're getting bad press, you need to shut your fucking mouth', and all of these things."  I can't say that I ever read any of these bad reviews of "Disarm" or Siamese Dream.  Maybe Corgan's memory is a little jumbled.  But if it is accurate to say that he was being actively discouraged by either his management or the people around him from continung in his Siamese mold, then that's quite an admission, and I must say goes some way of putting the mystery to bed as to why he was never able to attain that level of musical brilliance again.

So he acknowledges that Disarm was a huge hit, but then accuses everyone else of making him suck after that. 
Poor Billy... forced to suck. 
Billy Corgan seems to have a lifelong habit self–glorifying while blaming everyone but himself when his shit happens to stink.  

Permit me to go boldface just so I can share some excerpts; Here he is in August 1998, shortly after the flop of Adore, blaming the fans for snubbing his artistic vision:

His recent media campaign follows on the heels of the rocker's interview last week with the New York Times, in which he was quoted as saying that the Pumpkins felt "kicked in the head" by fans' relatively lackluster response to the electronics-tinged Adore... "I think there's been kind-of a knee-jerk reaction [to Adore], not only because we're attempting to change, but because ... people are sad that the era has come to a conclusion. So, I think we're kind-of being punished for that."
—Pumpkins' Corgan Tells Radio Jock He Inspired Hole LP

He’s also thrown various bandmates under the bus for the Pumpkins' fall–off:

"A lot of things that I have said thru the years seemed confusing, like I was hiding something, and oftentimes I was. ’Why,’ you might ask. Many times I hid things to protect my band mates.”
Corgan said he regrets initially blaming the split on “fighting the good fight against the Britneys of the world.” “By saying that, I was seen as someone who was crying foul, taking his ball and going home, which was sad, ’cause it wasn’t true at all,” he continued. “The truth of the matter is that guitarist James Iha broke up the Smashing Pumpkins. Not me, not drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, but James. Did it help that bassist D’arcy Wretzky was fired for being a mean-spirited drug addict, who refused to get help? No, that didn’t help keep the band together, not at all.”
—February 18, 2004, Corgan blames guitarist for band's demise

"He thinks it's a privilege for anyone to be in his presence."
—February 14, 2018, Smashing Pumpkins: D'Arcy Wretzky says Billy Corgan claim he invited her on tour is 'a complete lie'

First, Wretzky claimed that Corgan invited her to be a part of the reunion but then rescinded his offer. Then the rest of the band issued a statement claiming that Wretzky repeatedly turned down offers to play with them. Then Wretzky shared screenshots of text messages from Corgan that seemingly contradicted that statement. And now Wretzky has spoken out, giving her first real interview in 20 years with Alternative Nation...
“Billy loved to humiliate people and shame people in front of other people. It was incredibly abusive, and I was the only one who would fight back... I just got to the point where I couldn’t fight anymore, and I needed to leave.”
“Everyone said he changed since he had a kid, and he can be very charming, and fun. He’s fun to talk to; I enjoy mental sparring with him. I just was so out of that world for the longest time, I wasn’t aware of a lot of the crazy stuff, like he supports Trump. What? The shapeshifting thing, I honestly think he may have a brain tumor. He’s always been insufferable.”
—February 13, 2018, Smashing Pumpkins Reunion Drama: Excluded Bassist D’arcy Wretzky Talks “Insufferable” Billy Corgan, Drug Addiction, And What She’s Been Up To For The Past 19 Years

One of my favorite Corgan quotes came out a month later:

“I would say 80 percent of the things that I get held up and mocked for, I’m doing intentionally,” he claims. “It’s sort of funny to me that they actually think I’m that stupid. It’s, like, yeah, I work in wrestling—I’m running you.”
—March 22, 2018, Billy Corgan Says He Makes People Think He's Stupid on Purpose

Gotta love these headlines.
To be fair, it does seem like he’s one of those stars that journalists love to hate:

"If you have ever paid attention to the Smashing Pumpkins, you know that Billy Corgan is a famously self-important rock star: the type who talks at length to the press about how great he is and then complains about being misquoted."
—Nov 11, 2022, Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan: ‘I don’t want my kids growing up with a has-been father’

Still, here's another classic indicator that he just might be the egomaniac we’re told he is:

"While Siamese Dream would become arguably the band’s best album, Corgan and producer Butch Vig’s decision to have Corgan himself play all of the bass and guitar parts on the record also contributed to a growing sense of dissatisfaction and resentment throughout the band."
—October 3, 2022,The messy story behind the Smashing Pumpkins split

And yeah, all that nutty stuff like being a regular guest on Infowars, and the whole “Billy saw a shapeshifter” thing. Just google his name along with the word 'shapeshifter' to find a gazillion hits like these:

October 20, 2017: Billy Corgan revives feud with Anderson Cooper, talks Alex Jones and his own “paranormal experiences” 
June 13, 2018: Billy Corgan again claims to have seen a shapeshifter

"It's a really messed–up story and I'd rather tell the whole thing in a book."