Corgan's Fury: Exclusive Q&A

A lot of artists love the album form or have some connection to it. Is it going to bother you to be more single-focused?
No, we're still going to do albums. I think we're going to do it in a different way. I can tell that our plans right now are to do an album over two or three years and put it out in pieces and then maybe eventually bring it all back together. The album doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be ten songs. Some dumb white guy somewhere doesn't have to like it. Some old fart, out-of-touch has to decide, oh, these ten songs aren't as good as Sgt. Pepper's. Well, you know what? I don't think the Beatles would be making an album right now.

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.
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.

Selling out has lost its negative stereotype in a sense.
We can all talk forever about how cool it is and how things are different: The power's coming back to the artist. But sometimes it takes an oppositional force to make things work. The old music business wasn't great but at least it kind of gave you something to kind of work with or against. Now, who do you work for and who do you work against? The great example is American Idol. I mean, who gets bigger marketing, whose TV show is bigger? And then those artists don't sell. There's a complete disconnect between the drama of the show, the emotional connection with the singers, and then absolutely no care for their musical career. I mean, that's troubling.