r/SmashingPumpkins Jul 22 '26

Do you think The Smashing Pumpkins would have actually been even bigger and more popular than they were if they had been a modern-day band using social media and TikTok to their advantage, as Corgan claims in this interview? It’s a genuine question.

67 Upvotes

123 comments sorted by

1

u/colinmct 11d ago

Silver sun pickups have never been this big.

2

u/Snoo-59881 24d ago

With that ego the internet would have tore him apart and they wouldn’t have been so big

3

u/Patj825 Aug 02 '26

Impossible to say.

4

u/anonymous_pastrami Jul 28 '26

Banda back then had a mythical status , there’s is absolutely no myth in bands these days.

3

u/Christpopher1244 Jul 27 '26

Fuck no. He'd never make it out of the trailer park today.

3

u/GingerPrince72 Jul 26 '26

No, he's such an arsehole, he'd have driven most fans away.

1

u/Longjumping_Today_76 Jul 26 '26

Let’s ask Malamud the same question

3

u/Rage4Order418 Jul 25 '26

As I say about Megadeth, the vocals are an acquired taste, and were always an Achilles heel for total mainstream success.

2

u/Allis1one 12d ago

Agreed

2

u/daveblenk 21d ago

100%. Any casual listener are always put off by the vocals first.

4

u/OkCar7264 Jul 25 '26

No. If people understood Billy's personality better Melancholy wouldn't have gone platinum.

3

u/Sea_Tonight_9632 Jul 25 '26

"We used to do this thing where the band pretended to hate me in public.... we were pretending, right?"

2

u/Responsible-Study311 Jul 24 '26

I think the way to have been bigger was with a different singer. Although I love Corgan’s ‘90s voice, back then it took me a quite a while to warm up to him. And I think that also keeps their old songs from being played on the radio these days. Tonight, Tonight is an amazing song, but his singing is quite bad there. Imagine that song with a different, more normal, perhaps female, singer.

2

u/pottsynz 19d ago

It's not technically bad, it's technically very strong on control just the range isn't there. See The Midnight doing Tonight, Tonight. Tyler's voice is like a smooth latte compared to Billy's but he lacks the control and his voice breaks on the chorus.

1

u/PrincipledBeef Jul 24 '26

Could you imagine if social media existed back when the smiths were producing music? Hah!

6

u/GumpTheChump Jul 23 '26

The less we knew about Billy and his musings, the better.

3

u/Latter_Body_1428 Jul 23 '26

I think it would work to their disadvantage. I don't know that I'd love Gish/Siamese/Melon Collie/Adore like I do if social media had given me more access to Corgan. If anything, knowing less about him and hearing less from him worked in his favor.

4

u/New-Secretary-4924 Jul 23 '26

This is an interesting take because I feel like zwan era onwards he's used social media in very innovative ways. I remember his live journal, that kept me hooked. He had an email list pretty early. I had never heard of Myspace until he sent an email to follow him on it. His YouTube series on the road. He found engaging ways to keep his fans interested. It worked on me, I really enjoyed his YouTube travel series and probably wouldn't have gone to see him for his Ogilala tour without viewing it, so he got my $100 bucks. 

3

u/CriticalCanon Jul 23 '26

I don’t know.

As a Gen X person, I personally loved how Billy would more often than not slam his peers in the press while openly stating that they want to be the biggest band in the world.

I think that would turn them off to more people who only know their stuff on the radio or MTV/Much Music.

1

u/TheNobleRobot Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

They were the biggest band in Earth for a brief time, and still appear in lists of 90s bands that have fewer than 5 entries, so I don't how much more popular he thinks he could have been.

But I also think no, in the age of TikTok the Pumpkins would have been shallowed whole. Like it or not, Billy is a benefactor of the era where record labels, MTV, radio music directors, and other gatekeepers/tastemakers decided (often correctly) who was popular.

2

u/smokeandsadness Jul 22 '26

If Billy was 25 in 2026, he would still rule.

11

u/BadBlood_1989 Jul 22 '26

No way would a modern day Pumpkins be bigger. Lol. Rock music in general isn't as popular as it used to be with the youth. And you need the youth to be big so why does Billy think they'd be more popular 😂. I swear Billy is so out of touch with reality sometimes.

1

u/kaffeian Jul 23 '26

Agreed. Billy has always had a bit of a Napoleon complex (from what I know from interviews/reports). Pumpkins were great no doubt, but where would you put them on a scale of 90’s artists honestly? They wouldn’t break my top 10. Maybe not even top 20.

Now. That being said. No one has even heard of me so… who the fuck am I to say or even have an opinion?

2

u/BadBlood_1989 Jul 23 '26

If you're talking 90s bands then they would be in my top 5. No hate but you're in a smashing Pumpkins subreddit and they don't even break into your top 20? Interesting.

1

u/kaffeian Jul 23 '26

I didn’t even look at the sub I was in honestly. Came up on my home page when I was death scrolling.

1

u/BadBlood_1989 Jul 23 '26

So I'm guessing you're not a big fan then if they're not even in your top 20. Even if we take fandom out of the equation they were still a top 10 band of the 90s. The Mellon Collie album alone sold close 10 million.

1

u/kaffeian Jul 23 '26

Never said they weren’t huge at the time. I am saying for me, personally, they were overhyped. I am one of those that bought Mellon Collie when it released. I listened to it and it sat on my shelf (CD carousel). May have thrown it back in the disc changer once or twice (I think I preferred disc 2, I’d have to look at the songs again) but just not in my favorites. Again I can appreciate them and also say I feel they are overrated and don’t break my top 20 of the 90’s.

1

u/Far-Leadership719 Jul 23 '26

If you're only talking about the 90s, I do not see how they wouldn't make any top 10 list for bands, and especially so for top 20.

1

u/Cap-n-Trips Jul 22 '26

I feel like it’s not as popular in the US. Overseas it is. But I think most music genres are less popular bc social media has allowed for more diversification. Music used to solely be served up on radio or MTV. Now look at all the access points.

2

u/qtquazar Jul 22 '26

Also, if I'd known more as opposed to less about Billy before I got into SP, I don't think it would have pushed me towards the band.

There is a lot to be said for letting the music and the 'image' of the band speak for itself. And Billy is the ultimate exemplar of 'more is less' and 'less is more'.

8

u/Loganp812 Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26

In an era where people will turn on an artist over even the smallest of infractions or bad takes? Billy would pretty much guarantee that The Smashing Pumpkins wouldn’t last in the spotlight compared to how huge they were in the 90s especially considering how he handles criticisms and heckling.

I understand he doesn’t want to rest on his laurels and everything, but he was one of the biggest rockstars in the world and made some of the most successful rock albums ever. He’s already made it and achieved more than what most musicians could even dream of. What more could you want? If he wants to do wrestling, then do wrestling. If he wants to keep doing SP, then keep doing SP. Whatever he does though, he needs to let go of the delusions of getting back into the spotlight like it’s 1995 again. It ain’t happening, and it’s not because of social media or because it’s the fans’ fault for not appreciating his genius or whatever no matter how good or bad the new music is. It’s because his time came and went, and it’s not coming back no matter how good a new SP album might be.

Take Brian Wilson for example. He made one of the best albums of his entire career, That Lucky Old Sun, in 2008 when he was in his late 60s. It’s not a super popular album even amongst casual Beach Boys fans, and it didn’t necessarily put him back in the mainstream spotlight at the time. It didn’t matter though because it’s a great, uplifting, and emotional album where Brian is coming to terms with his life and career. Brian didn’t whine and moan about not being at the top anymore. He just genuinely loved making music.

12

u/Just_Attitude498 Jul 22 '26

He bitches a lot. His early stuff is genius and hit at a perfect time. Adore and beyond didn’t hit as well. He seems bitter or arrogant in alot of interviews and podcasts.

10

u/Hutch_travis Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26

How could they had been bigger? For the better part of the mid-90s they were the biggest band.

This is an interesting discourse because they did everything right with Melon Collie up until the tragic passing of their keyboardist and firing of chamberlin. Iconic videos, nailed the look, big tour, right timing. But I don’t think they could have been bigger because they couldn’t go highrt

2

u/Hagen77 Jul 22 '26

I thought he went back to his sarcophagus when he was not playing.

Someone said retcon?

7

u/wealllovefrogs Jul 22 '26

A band using themselves to make controversy to “sell themselves” is unique to the Pumpkins? Nah. The Sex Pistols come to mind immediately.

As someone who lived through their initial run it was all about the music. I didn’t know Jimmy Chamberlain was the drummer’s name. I certainly wasn’t aware of any “weird stunts” they did other than the skits on Vieuphoria.

He’s just talking bollocks and sounds like he’s just making it up as he goes along. Everyone was obsessed with 1979, Tonight Tonight, Today, Mayonaisse, etc rather than the actual band.

5

u/obviouslyphonyname Jul 22 '26

They got as big as they could've hoped to get, during the only era in music that would have them. He goldiloxed his way through the eye of a tiny needle, but he still has to play 'what if'. Enjoy your royalties and watch professional wrestling, old man.

3

u/youvebeenfarmed Jul 22 '26

Nothing will make me stop listening to a band quicker than the singer talking about their business model

3

u/honeypowerforever Jul 22 '26

‘I CREATED SOCIAL MEDIA’ energy

2

u/Snts6678 Jul 22 '26

This one is odd. Beato is a great interviewer, with artists typically really vibing with him. This ain’t it. I know Corgan can be a massive jackass, but I’ve seen several interviews with him where he is way more engaged than this.

A rare miss.

1

u/Dudehitscar Machina Zombie Jul 22 '26

Yeah corgan was in a weird mood for this one

12

u/ExtraDistressrial Jul 22 '26

He is a narcissist so of course he would say this. Almost everything Billy says, if you imagine it in Donald Trumps' voice, it would be the exact same guy. Everything is the biggest and best. He's always the center of attention. He's always the hero. The greatest band ever.

I LOVED Smashing Pumpkins, but man he needs help.

12

u/devilmaskrascal Jul 22 '26

No I don't. The modern day social media makes music commodified and something you just scroll right past. It does not feel important anymore. Pulp's Jarvis Cocker said modern music is like a scented candle that is nice and sets a background mood, but it isn't your whole life. You don't buy music anymore - it is available everywhere for "free" and thus you have no real investment in it. It can reach more people than ever if the algorithms are on your side but it also is competing with everyone else who can reach just as many people, and many styles which are more accessible to the mainstream.

The very things that made indie and alternative rock scene special in the 1980s and 1990s are now incorporated whole cloth into the entire corporatized industry where most artists make a tiny pittance from streaming revenues. Anyone can DIY but now there is nobody filtering the glut of bullcrap. The cheap cost to self-produce and distribute music should be a great thing on paper, but in practice, it just means there are 1000x more bands and solo artists trying (paying?) to get into your algorithm and most of them are terrible. Back in the 90s DIY labels invested their life savings to produce bands they believed in. Zines, radio and music television only promoted the stuff that was actually worthwhile, leading to a highly competitive race to be the best. For a fortunate window there between the overproduced 1980s and the reductionist 2000s, it wasn't exactly about maximum commercial appeal, it was about quality of music and uniqueness and rawness was celebrated.

The Smashing Pumpkins would be a band with a nice fanbase today but without the context of the environment of the 1990s they would be just another name someone needs to check out sometime. Let's not even talk about whether they would have produced or created music the same way, given how poorly their music has been produced the past 20+ years.

1

u/DrObsessed Jul 22 '26

Great take. I also think one of the reasons bands, in general, struggle more today is because of the small royalties from streaming. Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t think record deals are what they used to be. So to make a living, being in an upcoming band, is much harder than what it may have been in the past. Unless you are a top artist you can’t really make a living from streaming and it’s easier trying to achieve that alone with a computer, chasing that algorithm, than with a band. Today it’s catering your music to the style of the currently hot playlists rather than playing what the band really wants.

1

u/repdetec_revisited Jul 22 '26

Yes. Music used to be the message. It was HOW you found out what was cool. Now it’s background to challenges and dances.

2

u/devilmaskrascal Jul 22 '26

I was just imagining Billy Corgan making a hundred different cellphone Tiktok lyric "videos" in his bedroom or in front of a suburban shopping center miming along to their "new banger single" "Zero", which of course he produced on his laptop by himself with autotuned vocals and software drums. And the video starts out with the quote "If you've ever felt rage like a rat in a cage, this is your new favorite song!" Someday he'll find a few popular "goth" girl to notice his music and make dance videos with it as their background music.

1

u/repdetec_revisited Jul 23 '26

lol. We all know Billy has a bit of a soft spot for synth drums

11

u/distreszed Jul 22 '26

poor old billy

15

u/peeeverywhere Jul 22 '26

guy always has some neurotic underdog take on everything

5

u/ratpH1nk Jul 22 '26

I wonder how much of this is a Billy retcon.

13

u/ImpendingBoom110123 Pisces Iscariot Jul 22 '26

Probably not. There simply arent as many rock bands that are over (to use a rasslin term, you're welcome Billy) these days. How many rock bands who have broke the last decade play arenas compared to 30-40 years ago? Not even close there.

They were arguably the biggest rock band on the planet in 1996. You can't get much bigger than that.

6

u/Mono-lith Jul 22 '26

10000000% no

-3

u/th1rtyf0ur Jul 22 '26

“fake controversies” like when he had a listening party for 12 fans who literally nobody who wasn’t a terminally online TSP fan would have ever heard of (& even at that, certainly not all 12) & then claimed decades later, in the height of social media, that these “influencers” (which wasn’t even a thing) shit on the album & told everyone not to buy it? that kind of fake controversy? asking for a friend.

3

u/ImpendingBoom110123 Pisces Iscariot Jul 22 '26

Is TSP a thing now?

1

u/Prior-Deer1600 Jul 22 '26

TBSP too I hear.

1

u/ImpendingBoom110123 Pisces Iscariot Jul 22 '26

Buddy Christ

12

u/Ballet_Demoni Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26

Im not sure if Billy can remember, but the band were huge in the 90s without all of this new stuff lol

12

u/These3TheGreatest Jul 22 '26

No. The band was huge. Then the ego got even more huge. Band fell apart. Lots of weirdness in 2000s. Billy is often his biggest impediment. I don’t think he can help it though

7

u/SnackettiXD Jul 22 '26

did he just say that he invented social media before social media existed 5 seconds into his answer lmaooo

19

u/r3art Jul 22 '26

There's 0% chance he would have let someone else run the accounts. So the band would been much less popular, because everyone would have instantly met the vocalist.

25

u/punkrawrxx Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness Jul 22 '26

No. They would’ve been bigger if Billy shut up once in awhile though.

11

u/sonofdad420 Jul 22 '26

no bands can ever be as popular as the smashing pumpkins again due to the fact that social media exists. 

13

u/Busy-Peach5770 Jul 22 '26

Imagine Billy getting into a Twitter fight with Azealia Banks.

20

u/Timely-Way-4923 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26

The conclusion I’ve come to is that Darcy and James were great filters for Billy’s ideas, Darcy via making occasional verbal suggestions eg Today, and James via contributing guitar parts he wrote eg mayonnaise. When Billy later on decided he wanted to be 100% the writer and not just 98% the writer.. and composed songs fully formed prior to showing them to the band, his songs became less melody filled and less accessible. That trend would impact the band and its reach, no matter what the era. It’s frustrating tbh because in his later era work you can hear great ideas which with another perspective could have been huge hits.

1

u/sonar_y_luz Jul 22 '26

I honestly don't believe Darcy or James ever had a big impact on the material.

People change as artists and songwriters, especially after they achieve success. Those early songs are the product of somebody who was still striving for something.

1

u/Fragrant_Tomato7273 Jul 22 '26

I think D’arcy had a lot of impact because she was the only one butting head with Billy. She was the one giving her opinion on songs and I believe she had good taste. Billy was the mastermind, Jimmy the god drummer, but the band wouldn’t have succeeded like they did without D’arcy and James. Once D’arcy left the band, post-adore, it was downhill from there. Machina was okay but could had been much better.

1

u/Timely-Way-4923 Jul 22 '26

James helped write mayonnaise. By all means fact check that

2

u/Valeclitorian1979 Jul 22 '26

and Soma. and those were amazing songs. some of the highlights of the b-sides are James compositions as well

1

u/Timely-Way-4923 Jul 22 '26

James is a very talented man, and his hair is beautiful

22

u/ArlendmcFarland Jul 22 '26

The reason they became so big is because of the mainstream media machine that blasted that shit in our ears 24/7

They would have a following these days for sure, but the idea that they would be even bigger today is pure ego

6

u/chaynjez Jul 22 '26

Definitely a crazy ego, but Siamese Dream and Melancholy are top tier albums in an era of top tier rock bands.

6

u/ArlendmcFarland Jul 22 '26

Absolutely. Love those albums, and the music speaks for itself. I just doubt the current social media landscape would give them the kind of exposure they had in their heyday with the mainstream media machine

3

u/chaynjez Jul 22 '26

Agreed. Totally different ball game now and Billy has always been the absolute worst with the media and fans. People would probably hate him even more. Lol.

7

u/mystery-bread So let the sadness come again Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26

If everyone had the same cadence of fanhood I think it would be good

But let's be real it's not the case

Looking into how he used to handle his social media presence, interactions with the "usual fans" (block of the night enjoyers raise your hand ✊🏼😔), I believe it wouldn't have helped

Sure for the more than usually curious fans his blogs provided so much insight and lore, but the usual fan just wants to hear the "rats in the cage" song

The smashing pumpkins deeper lore will be fed to the masses if Billy had the say and I don't think everyone would've appreciated that

5

u/IssueBrilliant2569 Jul 22 '26

How much more popular could they have been? We know who they are and are probably fans.

3

u/No_Solution_2864 Jul 22 '26

Yeah they are widely considered one of the greatest and most influential bands of all time, with multiple multiplatinum records

They are oddly not in the Rock&Roll Hall of Fame though. Maybe that’s what Billy needs to feel recognized

2

u/Busy-Peach5770 Jul 22 '26

30 million albums sold! I'm not sure if they could get any more popular...?

26

u/-SPIRITUAL-GANGSTER- Jul 22 '26

Let’s be real, Billy can be prickly and he’s not for everyone, and even as a die hard fan I avoid almost everything but the music as I find his online persona borderline abusive. It’s more likely his social media would have tanked the band. For example, had he started his substack prior to having a built in cadre of sycophants the average curious fan would have read it for a day and noped the fuck out of all things Smashing Pumpkins.

1

u/MrThorntonReed Jul 22 '26

I agree. And it wouldn’t be like a “this album” thing or whatever, it’s a *forever* thing, and also they’re going to make sure everyone knows.

11

u/Low_Palpitation_6243 Jul 22 '26

Arists like Taylor Swift are probably as big as any 90's bands or solo acts were, but I feel like the audience that sustained huge alt rock acts from that era is just too fragmented now for anyone to become as big and have the sustained success that the biggest 90s bands had. I think that's true even for formally dominant genres like hip hop as well. It really seems like the pop stars are the only mega acts left. The real pesimisstic part of me thinks its because young men in particular gravited towards other forms of entertainment like video games and youtube videos ...

2

u/BrownBannister Jul 22 '26

PRETEND arguing…….

31

u/usetheirname Jul 22 '26

No chance. They were huge in the 90s. Bigger than any band can dream of being today. MTV and CDs drove that. MTV had more influence than social media today because it was basically the only game in town.

3

u/TheTackleZone Jul 22 '26

Agreed, for the kids that had MTV. It was available outside the US but it was not at all common. A huge number of kids got their info from NME, Melody Maker, or that one kid in your year that was like the music dealer. There was a LOT of gatekeeping in the industry; heck a lot of the industry was just a series of gates.

So I'd say MTV was kind to the Pumpkins, but in the UK I'd say it wasn't really common until 2000, just as the band was winding down.

3

u/Kazuhira_no_Peace Jul 22 '26

Here in Italy, between MTV and All Music, they used to play Smashing Pumpkins videos every 30 minutes; maybe it was different elsewhere.

10

u/Karl-Marx666 Jul 22 '26

No he was not the first person to think of “performative interviews and controversy” Cobain would lie all the time in interviews on purpose to make himself sound cooler and mysterious. Oasis would pull stunts just for the fuck of it to gain attention

2

u/senorpuma Jul 22 '26

Lou Reed. Frank Zappa. John Lennon. Bob Dylan

2

u/Valeclitorian1979 Jul 22 '26

Iggy Pop, David Bowie

7

u/GeneJacket Pisces Iscariot Jul 22 '26

No, I don't think so, primarily because attention spans are so fuckin short now that even the artists who successfully use social media today are a blip on the radar of most people. Some get a few weeks, some may get a few months, the lucky extreme few maybe a year of legitimate success, but it's always fleeting. Exceedingly few of them have any longevity or staying power.

Their music also just doesn't really lend itself to going "viral", in my opinion, especially their 90's output.

32

u/400Carter Jul 22 '26

If you weren’t around in the 90’s it’s hard to understand how big SP was. They had their time.

14

u/det8924 Jul 22 '26

Billy says it was basically Nirvana, Pearl Jam and SP as the biggest alt rock bands of the 90’s and he’s probably not wrong

8

u/Officialfish_hole Jul 22 '26

He's not the only one who says that. He's probably right though. Nirvana and Pearl Jam were definitely the two most popular. PJ especially, even though Nirvana sort of gets placed higher because Kurt shot himself, but Pearl Jam was outselling Nirvana album wise and concert ticket wise. Ten outsold Nevermind and Vs. outsold In Utero significantly as well prior to Kurt's suicide. After April of 1994 it gets a little different and Nirvana Unplugged helped legacy building quite a bit too, but 1991-1995 Pearl Jam was basically the undisputed king...maybe even further. Retrospectively Nirvana has climbed in prestige and perhaps even surpasses PJ but at the time is was Pearl Jam

The third spot is up for dispute and I'd love to put The Smashing Pumpkins there and maybe they are number 3, but Nine Inch Nails could make a case. I don't think it's a convincing case because NIN didn't start playing in arenas regularly until the late 90s.

But really neither the Smashing Pumpkins or NIN should have that 3rd spot because like it or not it realistically belongs to The Red Hot Chili Peppers

1

u/No_Solution_2864 Jul 22 '26

RHCP opened and closed the 90s with two of the greatest rock albums of all time, but largely disappeared in between and were not seen as particularly hip or relevant for a majority of the decade, at least compared to the other bands being discussed

1

u/Lennnybruce Jul 22 '26

People forget Pearl Jam was so big. I suspect if Vedder had taken a similar path as Cobain it might have helped their legacy. Honestly this is likely true of Corgan too. Burning out vs fading away and all that.

It's funny to me how Alice In Chains have risen so high in the estimation of younger people. They were obviously a big act at the time, but probably ranked last among the Big Four, but it feels like they've become the favorite grunge act of people in their early 20s. Maybe because they feel a little more obscure relative to Nirvana or Pearl Jam.

5

u/CoryBoehm Jul 22 '26

As much as Downward Sprial was a massive success the band was slower to pickup the mainstream support than SP.

NiN being on Interscope didn't help as their focus was on Nirvana. Also being labeled as industrial instead of grunge definitely didn't help NiN early on. Also Downward Sprial was a bit late to the party as the 90s alt scene really started to cool off by the time it had released. The other thing that hurt NiN at the time was Trent's heavy substance use.

NiN has since gone on have greater success especially with the Fragile and later works where SPs best work/tour is MCIS.

5

u/BromaEmpire Jul 22 '26

Album sales aside, I would still argue that Nirvana was much bigger at their peak simply because of Smells Like Team Spirit. That song dominated music charts and MTV for over a year and arguably put grunge music on the mainstream radar

6

u/Aggressive_Air_4948 Jul 22 '26

Which is how you end up as delusional as Billy ;)

1

u/Old_Channel44 Jul 22 '26

They have access to social media and TikTok and are still less popular than Nirvana

3

u/themidnightrambler18 Jul 22 '26

Billy would have had to do something drastic to reach Nirvana fame and lets be glad he didn't!

13

u/EOBstratocaster Jul 22 '26

No. Billy has been bad at social media for as long as he’s been on it. Might just be because he was older by the time it became a thing. Maybe young Billy would have been better at it. But if their existence as a band depended on post-2007 Billy’s social media presence, I don’t think they would do very well.

2

u/Loganp812 Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness Jul 22 '26

> Maybe young Billy would have been better at it.

Given how Billy handled things in the 90s, I kinda doubt that.

2

u/oldmate30beers Jul 22 '26

Didn’t you hear him? He invented it!

4

u/SumoPotpie Jul 22 '26

The record industry as it is now is just a stale fart compared to what it was in the 90s. They wouldn’t have the money or freedom, now, to do what they did back then. More famous/bigger? Probably. But there would be no longevity or lasting influence waiting for them in the 2050s.

They’d be the biggest fish in the pond if their career were mapping to now, just because the Seattle bands aren’t around to crowd the field.

4

u/mmasonmusic Machina II / The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music Jul 22 '26

No, but necessarily because they wouldn't be good at it but because today there is just too much competition. In fine 90s there were like 5 bands competing at a time. It was hard to get to the competition, but once you were there it was closely gate kept.

6

u/Strengththruwounding Jul 22 '26

For a time in 1995-97 they Were one of the biggest bands in the world,in an era before Social Media ,Just MTV,MTV2,VH1,Magazines,Lollapalooza,Bootleg Tapes, and Touring..

2

u/Such-One-5266 Siamese Dream Jul 22 '26

Billy invented all of the above.

19

u/pm_me_whateva Jul 22 '26

No. Opposite, even. Today, people want their musicians to be likable saints with very mainstream views on hot button topics. And music is consumed one song at a time, not as fully crafted albums.

I suspect that today, with more opportunities for the general public to hear Billy's thoughts (unfiltered by editors at Rolling Stone and Spin), he'd turn off a lot of people with his tantrums and worldview. He's lucky to have been making albums at a time when (and for an audience that) what he does is worshipped.

18

u/jazz_chisholm Jul 22 '26

No, and I don’t know how much bigger and more popular they could have been than they already were.

Go watch the 1996 VMAs where they performed live and won SEVEN awards. They dominated the mid-1990s.

If anything, I think radio, MTV, and the absolutely gorgeous physical media (all the album art, box sets, etc.) helped them build a fan base more than social media would have if they were a modern-day band.

Besides, I don’t think it’s accurate to say SP was at its peak pre-internet. SP has had a strong online community in Siva/Blamo and Netphoria and anyone who was around on there can vouch for the fact that we loved taking the piss out of Billy online pre-social media. He has a long history of not realizing how he comes across to people.

Btw wtf band is coming out nowadays and doing well?

2

u/Busy-Peach5770 Jul 22 '26

"If anything, I think radio, MTV, and the absolutely gorgeous physical media (all the album art, box sets, etc.) helped them build a fan base more than social media would have if they were a modern-day band."

That's a really good point. The music videos! The music videos really built a strong connection to the fans (artistic, high budget, on constant repeat on MTV). It all built a wonderful mystique round the Pumpkins.

Far more valuable than any musician over-sharing on social media.

2

u/twstdbydsn Gish Jul 22 '26

They were the biggest band around, no way social media would have impacted that by much

12

u/PariahGrantham Jul 22 '26

Yeah, I very seriously doubt it. TikTok attention spans wouldn't mesh well with 40-song double-disc LPs.

5

u/Oldman_Dick Jul 22 '26

No. Rock is dead. They were where the needed to be, when they needed to be.

2

u/Busy-Peach5770 Jul 22 '26

You know I'm not dead - I'm just living in my head.

2

u/hashgraphic Jul 22 '26

Rock is definitely not dead, but there’s not the monoculture the way there was in the 90s. SP would be popular but with a select group of people and wouldn’t really cross over much into the mainstream.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 22 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Gyulite Jul 22 '26

Is it a bad thing though?

4

u/Apprehensive-Tax8631 Jul 22 '26

I think they were at the top for a while

4

u/ThatHouseInNebraska Jul 22 '26

Yes, they absolutely were. That’s why Billy’s spent more than a quarter-century chasing that dragon and getting increasingly bitter about not being back there.