Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan has theorised that rock music was “purposely dialed down” by the CIA and MTV starting from the late ’90s as a way of explaining why it’s not been so prevalent in the 21st century.
The conversation came up in an episode of Corgan’s podcast The Magnificent Others, on which he was discussing the state of rock music with writer and cultural commentator Conrad Flynn.
“I think, and I will say it overtly, I think that rock has been purposely dialed down in the culture,” began Corgan. “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 continued: “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 in the thing. And it was replaced by rap… Their standards and practices immediately shifted, so now that 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.”
Later, he said: “Of course, great music came out of it, so it’s not a barren wasteland where something was pushed in that replaced something. 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 dialed down the ability of rock stars to have a voice in the culture.”
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Coincidentally, around the period Corgan was talking about, The Smashing Pumpkins released ‘Adore’, their least rock-oriented album of their career so far.
Corgan previously told NME that with his podcast, he wanted to “celebrate people in the culture that I feel either are misunderstood, overlooked or maybe don’t have the proper perspective from my position about what they’ve actually accomplished.”
“I don’t have any simple answer. It’s just a feel,” he said of how he “cherry-picks” his guests. “It’s a 90-minute show. That’s a lot of time to talk. So if you’re really not interested, and you don’t want to dive into one particular area or two of their life, then you’re going to end up asking them questions that they’ve been asked 1000 times. So, it’s a sense that maybe there’s an unexplored area or something that’s been misunderstood or overlooked.”
Corgan previously revealed in an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast that he thinks The Smashing Pumpkins are “one of the most misunderstood bands in the history of rock ‘n’ roll”.
He went on to explain: “I think it has a lot to do with the issues of Gen X, and it has a lot to do with a relationship that I set into motion with the media when I was a very young person, playing kind of a funny game — like doing my own my own version of Andy Kaufman or Bob Zmuda. Because I thought it was all shitty, so I was just like, ‘I’m just going to play with this like a toy because I think it’s kind of funny.’”
“I didn’t realise that the coming culture was going to kind of almost be attracted to people who are willing to immolate themselves on the public stage. Most people who are attracted to fame, they want to run towards the the shiny part of it. I was attracted to the non-shiny part, which is, ‘Okay, I’ll light myself on fire and let’s see what happens,’ or ‘I’ll light you on fire and let’s see what happens.’
Corgan continued: “So, it kind of worked in the ’90s when everybody was rolling and moving along. Well, here comes Napster, the music business craters, then a bunch of people die, and there you are at 40 years old, you’re supposed to carry some flag for a generation that doesn’t even know who it is anymore.”
More recently, Corgan revealed that his pick for the second most influential band of the 20th century would be Manchester post-punk giants Joy Division.
“I think it sort of speaks for itself. They sort of crystallised post-punk in a way that no bands ever did and they became the template for so many bands that followed,” he reasoned on the YouTube series Track Star*.
“It’s pop music not made for a pop market and that’s why people are still listening. But where does that music go? They had what, one big song, maybe, which is ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart.’ But I just think they’re one of the greatest bands of all-time and it’s such an easy case for me to make that I don’t know how to make it.”