The Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan — himself no stranger to making long albums — thinks it’s silly to knock Taylor Swift for the length of her recently-released 31-track double album, The Tortured Poets Department.
Speaking to The Irish Times ahead of Smashing Pumpkins’ upcoming European Tour, Corgan discussed his enduring respect for the late Sinéad O’Connor as well as the fan backlash he received online when making the controversial pair of hard rock-centered 2000 albums, Machina and Machina II.
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He then brought up Swift in reference to the online clamoring: “Let’s go back to Sinéad for a second. Now that Sinéad’s gone, would it be a bad thing if somebody turned up tomorrow and said, ‘Hey, I just found this tape, and there’s enough for 20 – or 30 or 50 – ‘Sinéad songs.’ Would that be a bad thing? Taylor Swift is one of the most gifted pop artists of all time. How is it a bad thing that she’s releasing more music? I can’t follow that … You can go on Spotify and just skip it.”
He continued, saying “People complained about the length of my last album, Atum. I thought, Well, just go make your own playlist. Just listen to the record one time – rag over the six or 10 songs you like and make your own record. Why is this such a strange concept? Have some sense of proportionality. This hyperbolic thing – ‘They ruined Star Wars. My God, this is all too much for me to process’ – it’s all a bit childish.”
While Atum happened to be a three-act concept album landing at 138 minutes total (by comparison, Swift’s two-part album is 122 minutes), Corgan and the Smashing Pumpkins have often employed extra-long album lengths, notably on the band’s lauded 1995 double album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.
Regarding O’Connor, Corgan — who became friends with her while she lived in Chicago with a mutual friend of his — commended her “bare-your-soul honesty” and artistic vision. “Sometimes it’s [sad] it takes a passing for people to come into contact with how they feel. People realize now that we lost someone who probably should have gotten more attention and support when she was here. Because her gift was so rare. And her gift had a lot to do with her pathos. Her incredible gift of singing had a direct line to her heart. That’s so rare in singers. Most singers are actors. Sinéad was not an actor.”
Corgan also discussed an infamous and harrowing crowd crush during a Pumpkins show at Dublin’s 3Arena in 1996, which killed a 16 year-old fan and sparked a major discussion about the dangers of moshing. Read Corgan’s interview with The Irish Times here.
After their shows in Europe alongside Weezer, Smashing Pumpkins are linking up with fellow ’90s rockers Green Day for a major stadium tour this summer, with some headlining dates along the way; get tickets here. Corgan, meanwhile, is celebrating the release of his new reality show, Adventures in Carnyland.