The well-read music blog Stereogum has a post today entitled “Billy Corgan On Radiohead: ‘Publicity Is Better Than Music’”. This five-word quotation comes from Billy’s recent interview with Rolling Stone. Stereogum plays up the quotation as if it were a slap at Radiohead, but — as demonstrated below — it ain’t so.
Here’s the portion of the Rolling Stone interview that was reproduced by Stereogum:
Rolling Stone: Artists are finding their own ways to get paid outside of the major-label system, like the Eagles with their Wal-Mart deal, Madonna signing up with Live Nation.
Billy Corgan: I think it’s really difficult for the young artist, who doesn’t have at least some sense of a pathway. For example, if you were a kid today and you’re looking at the bands who are successful right now, you think, if you don’t sort of sell out and let somebody make you a star, go on American Idol, then you can’t be successful. Alternative culture is really critical towards introducing new ideas. We need those young bands to push old band like us, to push new boundaries. We need our butts kicked regularly. That’s where all the energy comes from, from the bottom. And when the message on Amy Winehouse is drama is better than music, and for Radiohead publicity is better than music — no disrespect to them. But I think it’s a bad message to young bands of how to make it happen. It’s almost like the evil stepchild of the rap bling-bling thing, like, the only way to make it work is I’ve got to come up with a gimmick.
Unfortunately, that quotation standing by itself lacks perfect clarity. More unfortunately, Rolling Stone has removed from its site an earlier portion of the interview — such portion, as luck would have it, upon which Corgan was building in the Stereogum-quoted segment. Mercifully, however, that earlier portion was saved for posterity in a post on HU. Here (again) is that earlier portion of the interview:
RS’s Evan Serpick: It seems like the last decade or so, we haven’t seen many superstars emerge. Do you think it’s because of the focus on singles or the fickle market?
Billy Corgan: Number one, I think there’s just too much. I mean, how can you ask an eighteen-year-old to sort through everything that they’re presented with? Realistically, just being hot and talented and having a good single isn’t enough anymore. You really need like the extra story, like Amy Winehouse had, or a Britney freak-out. Like, Radiohead putting out a great album is not enough of a story. Radiohead putting out a free album, and blah, blah, that’s the story. So it becomes more media-driven, event-driven, than music-driven.
Corgan’s intent here is rather clear: he is describing what he sees as a problem with the contemporary culture or music industry, such problem being that what gets attention for an artist is not “a great album” (note his implication that In Rainbows is a great album) but an “extra story” like a “freak-out” or a “free album”. With this fuller context, it’s (more) obvious that the Stereogum-quoted section is an expression of empathy for young artists and an affirmation of the primacy of music over drama and PR escapades. (You know, everything for which an “indie” blog is supposed to stand?)
To be clear myself: I’m assuming Rolling Stone just wanted to tighten up the interview and thus they quite innocently removed a part that appeared redundant. However, I see Stereogum as going out of their way to jump to a shocking conclusion, when any attempt at sympathetic research would quickly reveal that Billy Corgan very much likes Radiohead. But, you know, fo*k that. Why bother when some manufactured drama between the Devil and the angels (right) can really pump up the page views? You see, Billy?! For generating ad revenue on the Internet, publicity is definitely better than…truth.
They’re giving away an iPod Nano preloaded with “the entire Smashing Pumpkins catalog”, and their first commenter is all over it, er, them:
