My Constant Embarrassment

It seems like at this point in his career, Billy Corgan exists to simply make a fool out of me. Not himself. Not Smashing Pumpkins fans. Me. The reason? I have been defending this guy for years. When a legion of Pavement fans took a lyric the wrong way, I defended the man despite his own gross misunderstanding over the matter. When he had the audacity to make a largely acoustic/electronic based record (1998's Adore), I defended it, as it was a totally awe-inspiring record - ditto for Machina, it's largely panned followup. From there his career entered a moderate decline, of which I still defended his work. His indie rock "supergroup" as it was, Zwan, became a critical punching bag - needless, as it was a decent effort although the one album they released (2003's Mary, Star Of The Sea) was a bit overcrowded and one sided. From there he put out his first official solo album, 2005's TheFutureEmbrace. Again, not a bad record as far as mid-2000's synthpop goes; of course it was largely ignored.

While Corgan paraded through this past decade seeming be able to do no right in the public's eye, I still defended him as a misunderstood genius. This protection of the man seems to have increasingly bitten me in the ass over and over to the point where I feel like it has hurt my credibility in some circles. First, he claimed to have reformed Smashing Pumpkins, purposely withholding information about the lineup, knowing it would disappoint fans when he finally had to break it that James Iha and D'Arcy had no interest in a reunion. He and his puppet Jimmy Chamberlin (no disrespect to the man's skills as a drummer), shit out a fantastic piece of garbage (2007's Zeitgeist), recruited a handful of hired guns, and proceeded to subject fans to excessive, meandering noise jams (even Chamberlin eventually had to bow out). From there, he continually has taken pride in making a fool of himself - showing up to red carpet events with Tila Tequila, appearing in court attempting to grub money from radio stations, demeaning his own lyrics by reciting them in a cringe worthy wrestling advertisement...oh, and now he's dating Jessica Simpson.

The hardest part is I still defend him, because behind all his faults, the man masterminded some of the greatest albums of all time. I still get angry when I read interviews with newcomers like Kurt Vile who proudly sneered "fuck Billy Corgan" in a recent Pitchfork interview when talking about the stink Corgan once made over the lyrics to Pavement's "Range Life". Did Corgan overreact when he said "No one wakes up in the morning humming a Pavement song" in his unneeded defense? Of course! The guy is a huge baby who cannot take anything that even closely resembles criticism. Still, anyone who knows the story of the lyrics to that song know it's meant to be sung from the perspective of an aging hippie unwilling to accept new music. People tend to find it more fun to think it's a direct attack though so everyone suffers because of it. The problem with undoing this prejudice against the man is he seems to be his biggest enemy. I still respect his work and his ability to create great things, but I fear that he may have lost the plot for good.