I loved loved the Pumpkins in the 90s. Certain eras of my youth were defined by their albums. I actually learned guitar mostly to play Nirvana songs, but soon after that when learning what Corgan wrote, that’s what got me to where I would consider myself a fairly decent guitarist and of course it heavily influenced my own style and the kind of stuff I liked to write. And actually Billy Corgan is still a fucking amazing guitarist, even if I think musically he had said all he was really gonna say by the time Machina came out and the song writing which had once been like you said, real masterpieces, fell off dramatically into the mediocre or worse range.

I didn’t even think about Smashing Pumpkins for years, and was of course disappointed but not entirely shocked to learn how chud-adjacent he turned out to be, though I knew he had always been a dick at best. But just a few years back, I watched some videos of him just talking about gear and a few techniques to get certain sounds, fiddling around doing some demonstrations. The dude really is a virtuoso I think. Like in ways that I didn’t realize back when I was a big fan in my teens and early 20s. I also used to listen to a lot of Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, etc., and while Corgan may not be at quite that level, he’s closer to it than any other 90s popular rock or alternative guitarists I can think of. There are plenty of Pumpkins songs where that isn’t even evident, but of course certain other songs and their solos it does get revealed.