Even the most diehard rock fan would admit that the music doesn’t occupy as central a place in popular culture as it did during the 20th Century. The reasons for that are numerous – the rise of hip hop, technological change and just the simple fact that tastes and fashions move on all play a part in its relative decline. Nothing stays the same forever (otherwise we’d all be listening to each other banging sticks, after all).
But Billy Corgan seems to think rock’s decline is a conspiracy.
In the latest edition of his The Magnificent Others podcast, the lead Smashing Pumpkin said it was “purposely dialled down” from the late 90s onwards. And the CIA might have been involved. Really.
He was chatting with his guest, cultural commentator Conrad Flynn, when Corgan came out with it: “I think, and I will say it overtly, I think that rock has been purposely dialled down in the culture. Again, this gets ‘wizard behind the curtain,’ right? Somebody’s gonna say, ‘Well, how do you know who was the wizard behind the curtain?’ All I know is I saw the gravity shift.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sltcaKC_L4g
He continued: “If you were at MTV or around MTV in 1997 or 1998, suddenly they decided rock was out when rock was still very, very high up in the thing. And it was replaced by rap…
"Their standards and practices immediately shifted, so now that things that weren’t allowed were suddenly allowed. People were waving guns. Some people assert that the CIA was involved in all that. Again, above my pay grade, but I saw it happen. I did witness it happen.”
“Of course, great music came out of it,” he argued. “Qualitative things and great artists came in, but there was this overt shift. I saw it happen. And then now, rap … seems to be waning in terms of its cultural influence.
"Pop is completely dominant. Rock is probably the most dominant ticket-selling thing in the Western world, and yet there’s almost no representation of rock in culture. So, why do we have that schism? I think they purposely dialled down the ability of rock stars to have a voice in the culture.”
Well, it’s an opinion. It does sound, though, like it’s passed him by that ‘they’ – MTV, the CIA or whoever – haven’t entirely succeeded in their dastardly plot. Billy, after all, is one of many rock stars who currently has a ‘voice in the culture’ via a very successful podcast...
