Whatever Happened To... (Part One: Billy Corgan)

Ah, Billy Corgan, everyone's favorite bald, nasal-voiced mastermind behind one of the 90sd most influential bands, the Smashing Pumpkins. Ever since he first dissolved the Pumpkins back in 2000 (only to reform them 6 years later), he has been creating a suckfest in which he's not aware of (or in denial of), and making stereo systems everywhere blast shitstorms. Seriously, his catalogue this decade has not even remotely matched his 90s heyday, not even slightly.

Lately, though, Mr. Corgan has just been emabarassing himself. Whenever I read an article about Corgan's desperate attempts to try to stay relevant, it's like watching a train wreck, only it's kind of funny. This year alone, he's done some pretty stupid shit that makes me wonder if this is the same Corgan who wrote
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.

First, drummer Jimmy Chamberlin quits the Smashing Pumpkins, basically stating that "Hey, we suck now I'm jumping ship," though of course he worded it a lot nicer than that. Then, Billy Corgan decides to pull an Axl Rose, and become the sole Smashing Pumpkin, and record albums himself. This now leaves him as the only original member of the band, as he hired a bunch of replacement members to join the Pumpkins to replace James Iha and D'Arcy, who, with very good reasons, declined Corgan's offer to rejoin the Pumpkins. If Corgan was just going to be the only permanent member of the Smashing Pumpkins, he should have just done that in 2000 when he broke up the band in the first place. Not like it would have been very good in the first place, but remember how mediocre Zwan was? Oh yeah, no one bought that record.

So, now Corgan tore a few pages out of the Axl Rose handbook. Now, he has built up the audacity to charge fans $40 to watch him in the studio working on new material. Yes, you read that correctly. “Subscribers will be able to watch the next era of Smashing Pumpkins music take shape. … Each update would be a minimum of 5 minutes in length. That would mean subscribers would receive at least 25 minutes of unique audio/video material per week, and at least 5 hours over the course of the 12 weeks,” according to the Smashing Pumpkins' website. I got my MasterCard out for this one! $40 of my hard-earned minimum wage paychecks to watch Uncle Fester wank out, trying to recycle "Zero," and "Cherub Rock!" Yeah!

And now, Billy Corgan is reportedly dating Tila Tequila. I'm not gonna touch this. I'll just show you a photo.




Maybe when he gets the herp, he'll write some good music!

And now, he's doing an 8-Mile spoken word rap of "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" to promote a wrestling commercial.

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Uh... wow. Nice way to ruin a classic song! Do you need the money and publicity that badly?!?!?!

Well, while Billy Corgan continues to make an ass out of himself, I will listen to my old Pumpkins records with an element of sadness. Though, Billy Corgan isn't the only 90s rocker to make an ass out of himself this decade. However, if bad career moves were the Nuremberg Trials, Billy Corgan would be Hermann Goring.