We gave Billy Corgan a generous benefit of the doubt when he announced (among other, barely intelligible things) plans to challenge the concept of the album with the new Smashing Pumpkins album. Oops.
Tonight, an update came via Twitter follower Joe Bertrand; He linked me to this update on The Smashing Pumpkins’ official site. As per Corgan’s usual, there are way too many words, and not a lot of getting to the point. But if I’m following, the gist is this:
Pay $40, and for twelve weeks, Billy will give you updates from the studio. And you might even get to participate in some fashion that may or may not affect the new album. Or something.
It’s not a bad idea, it’s just a few years too late. Pumpkins fans will fork over the cash of course, and Billy deserves to be compensated for the effort he’ll surely put into these updates. But while it’s still unclear what the future of the music business is going to look like, I’m pretty sure this isn’t it. It feels a lot more like the past; a time when you had to pay for an artist to give you the time of day. A time when personal communication with an artist you love was, with luck, a once in a lifetime event. Call us spoiled, but we can now take it for granted.
It’s something more valuable than a CD, and developing new, better revenue streams is a wise endeavor. But I’ll be damned if I’ll pay $40 for a few months of glorified tweets, from any band. Just give me the ISP-level surcharge, pay the artists, and get out of my way. It’s not perfect, but it’s a sight better than what’s coming out from underneath Billy Corgan’s rock.
About Skwerl
Kevin "Skwerl" Cogill was taught his first computer programming language by his Mother's marijuana dealer at age ten. His first job involved hustling TicketMaster lines on behalf of a New Jersey concert ticket broker at age fourteen, followed by a job in graphic design shortly after graduating high school and trade school simultaneously in 1998. He built his first website in 1996 or so, and continues to do things the way they should be done, rather than the way everyone else does. He's a bit of an asshole, but he's fiercely loyal to fellow fans of good music.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Skwerl now resides in Los Angeles.
April 20th, 2009 at 11:14 PM
Post about his wrestling commercial.
April 21st, 2009 at 12:01 AM
haha… man. i almost did. it’d be like picking on a retarded kid though.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:57 AM
UP NEXT:
The Zac Efron \ Billy Corgan sex tape
April 21st, 2009 at 9:53 AM
What an idiot. Someone wake that guy up.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:55 AM
But I thought that’s what you did on this blog. Picking on people who started to suck.
April 21st, 2009 at 12:02 PM
It’s really weird to see someone lose their mind like this.
April 21st, 2009 at 2:41 PM
Oh Billy, Billy, Billy………….No one is buying his music, and yet he thinks people are going to pay to hear him whine on his blog. If he wants people to pay to hear his (non-musical)rantings, he could probably make a lot more money going on the college motivational speaker circuit, like Newt Gingrich or Al Gore.
April 21st, 2009 at 2:48 PM
I think what he was trying to say is, some people make it far too easy to be picked on. And this is not merely because they suck or are starting to do so. Billy doesn’t suck, he’s just doing some weird things that people are calling him on. Much better that than to worship the man no matter what he does, no? And I think antiquiet is pretty fair when picking on people, those who suck and those who don’t alike.
April 21st, 2009 at 3:18 PM
honestly, it often just comes down to time- if we could afford to watch the ‘net 24/7 and post everything cool or lame, we would have tore billy a new butthole for that one. while we have bills to pay with day jobs, we’ll miss things here and there. but we’re working on selling some ads and justifying more personal dedication. then all bets are off. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryYcyt8FPlg
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:33 PM
I am over Uncle Fester. I was so pumped after the LA shows last December, but he once again has managed to piss away any respect I had for him and his reformed unit.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:21 PM
Smashing Pumpkins was the biggest turd to have come out in the 90s.
July 4th, 2009 at 9:38 PM
[...] anyone’s word you can trust in the music world right now, it’s Jack White’s (not this guy’s). When Tom DeLonge first launched Modlife it was full of bugs and issues. It took nearly a full [...]
September 16th, 2009 at 4:57 PM
[...] bringing some not so compelling ideas to the table in April, it sounds like Billy Corgan will be putting the “less for [...]