Alright, I fired off my last post in haste without fleshing out more concrete ideas. To be a bit more diplomatic, I read an interview years ago in Rolling Stone where Corgan was talking about similar concepts, but at that point, he was still in denial about the changes in the music industry; he was going on about no one caring about rockstars anymore and things to that affect. After watching the whole thing, it seems that he is now at an acceptance stage, so I can give him props for what he's saying in the video.
I'm going to go over some of his points in more detail. Corgan was going back and forth between political and musical ideologies, but that's because he was thinking on the fly and trying to draw analogies between those two worlds, not that he meant anything political by what he was saying.
I am paraphrasing him and not directly quoting him, but I'm going to put his ideas in quotes so that it's easier to separate his talking points from mine:
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It's existing off most people's radar. It's not with guys with guitars.
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This is in reference to electronic music, and he's absolutely correct. I base this off my experience and I'm only bringing it up because Corgan did. I am finding better music in this area in the past 10 years than rock has been able to produce. This has crossovers to rap and pop as well, as a lot of that (the beats) is produced electronically. An entire generation has grown up with computers and that's what is being used to produce music, and will be going forward. I'm not going to sit around a wait for rock to become interesting again without knowing how long that's going to take. That's not to say that an artist doesn't need to know how to play instruments or understand music theory, but we're past the point where it's a new technique and we can simply discount anything produced electronically as "not real music." It's still very early in this transition from a long-term historical perspective.
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Not a single one carrying the mantle of Cobain. It's a redundant issue in Western culture.
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Would anyone disagree with this statement? And that's coming from Corgan, someone who was in the thick of all that hype when it was going on. I'm in agreement with him on this -- I have seen no new rockstars of that caliber. Where are all the frontmen? This is in contrast to, say, Skrillex, Kanye, or even Taylor Swift, all of whom have rockstar-like status in electronically-produced genres that have seen growth over the past two decades, at least.
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Retromania...images and re-appropriations...movies about the '80s...it all becomes cutesy and cuddly.
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Somewhat hard to know what he means by this as he mentions areas outside of music, but there are a lot of retro ideas that get recycled. Too much of that, then it comes as the expense of originality, creativity and progression. Rock is too cutesy at the moment and indie is the new mainstream, which makes it harder to find some diversity in the genre. Another example: the whole retro vinyl thing.
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Our music [Corgan's band] is hardly revolutionary, and I'm okay with that.
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I sense that he'd love to be at the top again, but he realizes the change in the music scene, and it isn't going to be the type of music he's producing. This is a matter-of-fact statement, and as long as he's producing the music he want to, who cares if it sells is what his point is.
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Get off of death culture...retromania. We need artists right now.
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I think he's drawing from the Cobain worship that he remembers. However, there
are artists right now, it's just that they are also in rap, electronic, etc., places that previously weren't looked to in the same kind of way. That's changing/has changed, though. He knows this, too, if one can infer to what his points are.
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people falling into their [cubby/comfy] holes.
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Complacency in not wanting to seek out music that is different from what you're used to.
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has to be someone with youth behind them.
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Where are the young rockers with good music and rock-star attitudes? Answer: they're making things other than rock music.
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Rise of third political party. artists which are not going to bow to either indie or mainstream god.
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I disagree that there is or will be a rise of a system like this that rivals that of the political spectrum. However, I think it's true that we are going to get diversions where people have no allegiance to either the indie or mainstream scenes. Ergo, scenes will not matter like they did in the past. That's currently true for me.
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(artists should) live great artistic lives with integrity do exactly what they want to do.
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last 10 years in rock have basically turned into a McDonald's commercial.
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Absolutely. Make the kind of music you want to make, and don't worry about bowing to either the indie or mainstream labels. That's what rock used to do in the past and that kind of subversion is something that's missing is what I think he's saying.
He takes issue with the indie class because...
(paraphrasing)
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if you don't let those bands rise up to the mainstream, that's what you get. ...to keep it here in NY or Seattle...preaching to the same choir, but what happens to the middle class who doesn't know the cool kids? They end up buying the mainstream as an alternative.
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I'm not into indie, but it seems like he's saying the indie class is protective of their acts, and if you keep everything in the underground, then all that will be left at the top/mainstream is the kind of dreck that we've had the past 10 years -- that's what people who aren't music nerds are going to listen to and buy. And it's like he said, it's painful to watch.