Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan has spoke about what he sees as the death of guitar music over the last 15 years. Corgan also said “‘Radiohead were the last band that did anything new with the guitar’.
Billy Corgan has openly spoken about why guitar music has dropped off in popularity and more people listen to electronic music and pop. Corgan said “We get our asses kicked by EDM or some of these artists that are more keyboard and drum machine and reverb,”
Corgan also spoke about how the guitar is obsolete “They’re engaging in new technology. Guitar isn’t new technology—there are only so many ways you can warp it around. Radiohead was probably the last band that really did anything new with the guitar.”
It seems that Billy Corgan has thought quite a lot about this elaborating on his point saying “If all you hear is pop and all you see are perfect performances and everybody smiling, to actually see a band invoke a darker spirit on stage and conjure it right in front of you in a mass of power you can’t explain, that is quite rare to that audience. No band in the past 15 years has come along and figured out how to do that”.
Corgan did end on a positive note however saying “There are some flashes, like a Royal Blood or something, where they’re trying to figure that power out, but they’re dealing with an audience that is so predisposed to pop.”
Photo Credit: Olivier Bourgi
