The rise of electronic music, specifically the United States market, in the past 5-6 years has been largely met by positive reactions from fans old and new. It has totally flipped the industry on its head and forced musicians to look technology in a totally different light. Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan is one of those people who see the innovation going on around him and has declared that alternative rock is just not keeping up with the times. In a new interview with EW, he expounds on that point almost resigned to the fact, "We get our asses kicked by EDM."
Going deeper into that point and trying to find some hope in the pool of despair Corgan is looking into when thinking about advancement in alt-tock, the musician tabs Radiohead as "probably the last band that really did anything new with the guitar."
"If you look at most alternative rock music in 2015, it hasn't really evolved for 20 years. We get our asses kicked by EDM or some of these artists that are more keyboard and drum machine and reverb, says Corgan. "They're engaging in new technology. Guitar isn't new technology-there are only so many ways you can warp it around."
Corgan does offer a solution that doesn't necessarily mean you have to go out and collaborate with David Guetta or Calvin Harris to reach the kids.
"My point is once I started to make peace and committed to playing guitars and realized that all the time I spent trying to reinvent the wheel was a waste of time, now I could get back to writing really good songs and figuring out how to produce it in a contemporary frame."
Read the full interview here. Get full details on the Smashing Pumpkins' tour with Marilyn Manson this summer here.
