I can only speak for myself, but I think one of the raddest moments in the history of recorded music is when the chorus drops in The Smashing Pumpkins' "Bullet With Butterfly Wings." The band is chugging along with this clean guitar part and a driving bassline over a pounding tom-tom riff, then Billy Corgan kicks on his Big Muff and wallops your eardrums with a wall of crushing fuzz as the drums go into a bombastic rock beat. Man, it gets me every time. Put that moment on a loop and I could listen to it for days on end.

I share this not to inflict my musical taste on the denizens of the Wildwoodiverse, but to remind us all that Billy Corgan is one of the most innovative guitar heroes ever to lay pick to strings. The Smashing Pumpkins are so ubiquitous (and they spawned so many imitators) that it's easy to forget how revolutionary their music was when they first arrived on the scene in the early nineties. They managed to mix the bummed-out British vibes of The Cure and Joy Division with the heaviness of Black Sabbath, the textures of shoegaze, and the aggression of punk. Then, they married that sonic attitude with the ambition and technicality of seventies prog. What kind of space alien super-genius dreams up that kind of sonic cocktail, and what kind of wizard is able to make it catchy enough to score multiple platinum records?

The answer, of course, is Billy Corgan, and his ability to synthesize these disparate influences into a cohesive sound is one of the secrets behind the Pumpkins' success. Though Corgan is known for his incredible skill as an arranger and songwriter (he often weaves together fifty-plus guitar tracks to create his infamous "Pumpkin Guitar Overdub Army"), the dude can flat-out shred, too--check the solo in "Soma" off Siamese Dream if you don't believe me! Regardless, Billy Corgan is the sort of guitar hero whose epic, grandiose brand of rock and roll has the power to transport us far away from everyday life, a skill that is rapidly becoming a lost art. It's life-affirming music, but it also makes you want to headbang.

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Serial Number: 51942

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