Billy Corgan, Everyone

Billy Corgan (Photo credit: bfick)

This post only exists because someone came to the blog searching for “billy corgan + noel gallagher,” which got me thinking.

This article is a year old, but Billy Corgan has never stopped being Billy Corgan, and I say, good for him.  I don’t necessarily even agree about Soundgarden or Pavement or whatever, but the point is that here’s a man who just can’t seem to help himself.  There is something beautiful in that.

Now, look.  I’m not saying we shouldn’t work through things and mature and get better.  But here’s a guy having a very public fight with consensus.  I don’t know if he’s a mess.  I don’t know if the impulse that produces paeans to sincerity in the public square, so refreshing in that space, manifest in other, destructive ways in Corgan’s personal life.  I can’t assume.  If so, I take back some of what I’m saying.  Then again, if this is the release that keeps other things together, march on, Billy. March.

Four paragraphs down in this link, enjoy Noel Gallagher get at the quintessence of the problem with the music industry today, followed by Billy.  Says Noel:

“The consumer [says] ‘Where’s my free music on the internet? Is this a free download?’ Fuck off! It cost me a quarter of a million pounds to make it, you’re not getting it for nothing. I want my quarter of a million back, thank you very much. That’s why we’re rock stars.

“That’s why tours are becoming so long,” explained Gallagher. “By the time I finish this tour it’ll be a year and four months. Records don’t get any cheaper to make, they get more expensive to make. I say this as an independent artist. I’m on my own record label. It isn’t backed by anybody else. I pay for it all. Everything.”

English: Noel Gallagher performing in Belfast, 2005 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Gallagher says the result has been for music to be made by committee and focus groups. “But as I understand it the consumer didn’t want Jimi Hendrix, but they got him – and it changed the world … Fuck the customer. He doesn’t know what he wants. You fucking give it to him and he likes it.”

That’s a brimful of Asha right there.