Smashing Pumpkins' frontman Billy Corgan has spoken out against the music of two his biggest peers - claiming Pearl Jam are 'derivative' and Foo Fighters haven't 'evolved'.
Following on from a recent interview in which Corgan said that he and Nirvana's Kurt Cobain were the 'top two scribes' of the 90s, he told US radio host Howard Stern that fellow giants Pearl Jam 'weren't even close' - agreeing with him that their music was 'derivative'.
"If you listen to the band’s work, and I know they have a tremendous fanbase and they should, they’re a great band but you know, I’m a Beatles guy, a Stones guy and a Kinks but if you go to a lot of those other bands they just don’t have the work," said Corgan. " I just don’t think Pearl Jam have the songs.
"If you stack my songs up, Cobain’s songs up and that band’s songs up, they don’t have the songs. They’re a great band, still an arena act, they’ve gotten it done for a long time and I have to bow to that."
- Watch our video interview with Billy Corgan here
Watch the full interview below
When quizzed on Foo Fighters, Corgan praised Grohl as a 'great songwriter', but added that he 'wasn't particularly thrilled' by their 'lack of evolution'.
"Dave [Grohl] is a great musician, a great songwriter and has done the work but to me, my criticism of the Foo Fighters, if I’m being a music critic, is that they just haven’t evolved and that’s sort of the recent wrap on them is, you know, making the same music," he said.
"Obviously, I’ve put my whole life on the line for making different types music as I’ve gone along. We’ve talked last time I was here about playing old songs, evolving and it’s just my mentality. I know it’s not for everybody. Listen, [Dave’s] getting it done so it’s like, if you want to be competitive, my philosophy against his, he’s the one winning."
Smashing Pumpkins new album Monuments To An Elegy is out now. Watch our video interview with Billy Corgan here
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