The 1990s ushered in one of the most socially and culturally significant shifts in the music industry, with artists like Kurt Cobain of Nirvana and Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins leading the charge. Cobain’s death in 1994 meant he only caught the early rumblings of this industry transition brought on by the rise of the internet and social media. Corgan, however, had a front-row seat.
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Toward the latter half of the ‘90s, the Smashing Pumpkins frontman noticed a tangible shift in how the public interacted with artists. A particularly unsettling interaction with a Cobain fan around this time was a shocking wake-up call to the dehumanizing nature of the industry leading into the 2000s.
Billy Corgan And His Strange Encounter With A Kurt Cobain Fan
The relationship between Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan and Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was a complex and tumultuous one. As the leaders of two of the most popular bands of the 1990s, the two musicians were more rivals than colleagues. The fact that Corgan had briefly dated Courtney Love before she left him for Cobain only made their competition that much more bitter. Corgan and Cobain eventually reached a more amicable place in their relationship—not necessarily friends, but certainly not foes either. Since Cobain’s death, Corgan has frequently expressed his admiration and respect for what the Seattle musician did for the rock ‘n’ roll world as a whole.
Still, that didn’t make it any less unsettling when a fan of Cobain’s approached Corgan after waiting in a meet-and-greet line for hours. “This kid kind of shuffles up after waiting in line for three hours, and he goes, ‘Uh, did you know Kurt Cobain?’” Corgan recalled on the Zach Sang Show. “I go, ‘Yeah, I knew Kurt Cobain.’ He goes, ‘Can I shake your hand?’ Okay. I shake his hand. He goes, ‘Thank you,’ and he walks away. So, he waited in line for three hours to meet me because I knew Kurt Cobain.”
Corgan said the entire experience was off-putting and that he struggled to rationalize the Nirvana fan’s behavior. In the end, he chose not to even try “because that’s where you want to put a bullet in your head. On some level, it’s so dehumanizing. I can’t wrap my head around it.”
The Interaction Seemed To Be Part Of A Larger Trend
Although Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan could (kind of) appreciate where the Kurt Cobain fan was coming from, he said, “It’s no different than objectifying a woman because she has a nice shape or something. It’s a compliment, but the flip side of it is like, ‘Hello, there’s a person in here.’” While Corgan’s brief interaction with the timid fan was a singular experience, the entire encounter seemed to point toward a larger trend Corgan noticed was gaining traction toward the end of the 1990s, thanks to the rising ubiquity of the internet and, in turn, social media.
Corgan said in the small window of time that the Smashing Pumpkins had become popular but social media wasn’t yet a widespread phenomenon, people would approach him on the street with an air of respectful formality. They’d grab the guitarist’s attention with a polite “Billy” or “Mr. Corgan.”
“Somewhere in 1999,” Corgan said, “it was like somebody dropped the pin somewhere and suddenly, every person I met was like, ‘Yo, Bill,’ like I was their friend.” Corgan said that before social media made artists more accessible to the general public, there was a clearer commercial exchange between the two. “I had to do something to get the bread to go see your movie. Now, a lot of stuff is free. It feels free, so that creates a different thing like, ‘Well, I don’t have to like you enough anymore.’ It’s like, you know, we’re all on Tinder in the world.”
Photo by Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images
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