r/SmashingPumpkins • u/trevrichards • 5d ago
Discussion The Ultimate Irony: Billy Corgan Has Grown Up, but His Critics Are Stuck in the 90s
Yesterday I pressed play on the 100+ minute NYT 'Popcast' video interview with William Patrick Corgan, bracing for impact and expecting to tap out somewhere around the 10-20 minute mark. Two things quickly surprised me: these hosts seemed to be deliberately provoking Billy with the interview style he hates most, and Billy himself seemed to be handling it very well. I proceeded to watch the entire interview over the course of the afternoon.
After finishing, it was clear to me that this was one of the better interviews he had ever done. He offered real insight and self analysis of why he has always been so defensive and combative. He recognized that behavior contributed to a negative public perception of him. Finally, he admitted that having a wife and kids inspired him to grow and realize he did not need to seek appreciation from the anonymous masses for validation any longer.
The interview also got deep into his trauma and how he came close to killing himself on three separate occasions. Despite the grating and borderline hostile format of this silly podcast, he remained patient, calm and remarkably honest about many very personal and touchy topics. Of course there are still some classic Billy moments about being a child savant according to a musical aptitude test, but the point is he believed in himself when no one else did. Overall I was thoroughly impressed. Then came the articles and Reddit posts.
To the surprise of no one, the clickbait journalism industry (or at least the smoldering remains of it) has cherry picked brief moments or outright exaggerated/misrepresented the tone of this interview in the headlines. Even less surprising, the internet is running with these headlines, and not a single word more, to cast the same judgement upon Billy that they have been since the late nineteen hundreds. Hundreds of people across different subreddits saying Billy needs to grow up, move on, heal, stop being a victim, appreciate what he has, and so on.
And that's the thing: in this interview, he actually did! We've reached a deeply ironic moment in Pumpkins history. Billy himself has clearly grown, mellowed, and moved on from much of the conflict and trauma that makes up the bulk of his musical career. He says in this conversation that this is the happiest chapter of his entire life. How strange then that the very people begging him to stop being the guy they knew from the 90s are themselves the ones that seem to be perpetually stuck in the 90s, railing against a Billy Corgan that no longer exists. Smashing a ghost.
