Billy Corgan Finally Breaks His Legendary Silence About Kanye’s Grammys Intrusion

Billy Corgan Finally Breaks His Legendary Silence About Kanye’s Grammys Intrusion

I’m sure we’ve all been wondering what Billy Corgan thinks about Kanye West’s latest stage-crashing incident, and now we know! Corgan appeared on Channel 7’s The Morning Show in Australia yesterday, and as Faster Louder reports, Corgan shared some lengthy thoughts about his fellow Chicagoan. Thoughts like these:

Kanye’s from Chicago so I gotta be careful, I gotta represent. I think it’s inappropriate for any artist to take somebody else’s moment and make it their own … In that particular moment you’re basically saying that everything that Beck’s done to be in that position is negated because in your own mind it’s not relevant to you, or your own thing. I didn’t think that’s the moment to do it. Maybe afterwards you can say that, you can put it in your own blog. But to jump on stage and steal that moment, to re-appropriate it in your own way I think is inappropriate. I will add — and I mean this in all seriousness — the problem with the social media era is the Grammys will be rewarded for bad behavior and so by extension will Kanye … It really should be a celebration of accomplishment and it becomes another version of high school.

Corgan also said he doesn’t believe Kanye’s antics were a PR stunt:

I don’t know Kanye, but I think he’s speaking from his heart. He believes what he’s saying. I just think that’s an inappropriate venue to do it because in essence that’s Beck’s moment.

Also, if Kanye ever did that to Corgan, he’d punch Kanye, apparently!

I’ve been on that podium too [Smashing Pumpkins have won two Grammy Awards] and if someone got up on my stage I’d knock them out. I don’t care who it is, I would’ve knocked them out … That’s my stage. I earned the right to be on the stage at that moment. That was Beck’s moment.

That led to a question about who would win in a fight between Corgan and Kanye:

Between Kanye and I would be a stand-off but Kim would take me down.

And since Corgan likes to talk about Kurt Cobain now, Corgan’s fellow scribe was tossed into the mix:

I think Kurt had an incredible level of integrity and I often say that he would know what to do with the pop miasma we’re dealing with right now. Because rock needs to be free and independent; it doesn’t need to imitate pop to survive. That’s very telling and negatively impactful to the music business as a whole. The music business worked fine when you had pop stars and you had rock stars and everyone was doing their own thing.

Corgan also said rock should be waging war on pop music, pop is turning into pornography, and sales are down because everyone wants to chase trends and no one wants to be an iconic individual. There’s a fleeting mention of Monuments To An Elegy in there at the beginning, too, but they quickly dispense with that and move on to more provocative content. You can watch the whole video below.

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