Billy Corgan finds new ways to sell his soul to the man

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Billy Corgan finds new ways to sell his soul to the man

January 28, 2009 2:42 p.m. by Dave Toropov

First, there was the unholy release of Zeitgeist in six different exclusive packagings for six different exclusive online and real world retailers; then the Pumpkins decided to premiere their new single exclusively on Guitar Hero: World Tour; and now there's this.

Prior to the kickoff of Super Bowl XLII, the world will hear the next momentus artistic vision from Billy Corgan in... a Hyundai commercial. The song is called "FOL," and it will be played as the new Hyundai Genesis Coup takes "The Epic Lap", a concept which is apparently the theme of the new ad.

None of this is really disturbs the peace that much -- Billy was already wearing thin on indie cred and none of us can afford a car now anyway. So right on! [Stereogum]

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16 Responses

January 28, 2009 at 3:07 p.m.

mburr

The question is whether he actually drives the Hyundai. Does Dylan drive a Cadillac?

January 28, 2009 at 6:18 p.m.

jjb

I was about to comment, but first I want to buy some Doritos, American Apparel, and JustMetal titanium.

January 28, 2009 at 7:13 p.m.

Kadgi

my oh my...

January 28, 2009 at 7:23 p.m.

Steve L

Actually, the first step was calling Billy and Jimmy "Smashing Pumpkins."

January 28, 2009 at 9:30 p.m.

EStan

Dude, he was in a Ford ad years ago. It's not a particularly new way for him to sell his soul, though I'm impressed you think he still has one.

January 28, 2009 at 9:40 p.m.

WilliamTrinity

So Cat Power does a couple commercials and no problem. Arcade Fire sells a song to Benjamin Button and no one says anything bad. But Billy tries to make some money and everyone jumps down his throat. I don't get it...

January 28, 2009 at 9:40 p.m.

hybridxdawn

I think it's mostly that the song was written for the commercial that irks me, I probably should have noted that in the story. I have less of a problem with popular songs being used in commercials.

January 29, 2009 at 9:46 a.m.

db	Oh my God, the audacity of the man. He's making money from his work???!!!!!!! Whore!

January 29, 2009 at 1:51 p.m.

designhawg

All you bastards yelling at Billy for making a buck, screw you. You know you would have done the same exact thing. I guess Wilco selling SEVEN songs to VW wasn't a big deal? Frankly, I think Billy is doing a smart thing. No one plays rock on the radio or MTV anymore (music even?) so how else do you get new songs and ideas out? Commercials. What's the biggest commercial play? Super Bowl. You haters are the small-minded idiots, not Billy.

January 29, 2009 at 7:33 p.m.

Wesley Harden

I must say though, as a long time fan and defender of Corgan, I am a bit disappointed. I was ok with the Guitar Hero deal. Writing a song specifically for a car advertisement may be appropriate for some music genres, but I would think alternative rock/"American Gothic" would want to distance itself from commercialism. I do hope they hit the road again soon

February 1, 2009 at 4:45 p.m.

JTristesse

We get a free song
Hyundai pays for it
SP makes a living
How is this bad ???

February 7, 2009 at 3:23 a.m.

satur9

dont listen to it then, morons!

February 11, 2009 at 6:09 p.m.

anon

The most important thing to Billy Corgan is getting his music out there. It is not wrong to license your song to a commercial. If you think this is selling out then every artist that put their song in a movies or on television is selling out. Tell me one artist that does not license their songs out. I can't believe the type of people they have writing these articles, just take a random artist, and bitch about them while doing no research. Is the writer of this article making money from writing, if so, how dare him, what a sell out.

February 11, 2009 at 7:17 p.m.

B/|NGER

blly hit on me last night at this club i go to all the time.
i told him to get away from me.
i also told him his music stinks.
and i also said that the pumpkins were never an important band.
his breath also stunk.

true story.

April 7, 2009 at 6:49 a.m.

Percussio

George Carlin was the most anti-capitalist, anti-establishment, anti-everything I know and I adored him for it.

Clearly one of the greatest inquisitive and brilliant free thinkers we have seen in long ... but he was also Mr.Conductor (in Shining Times Station kids show, Played in Jersey Girl (yeah!) and did 10-10-220 long distance commercials.

To quote the man "you're just gonna have to deal with it, ok?!".

Corgan has nothing left to prove ... he just loves music and is struggling to be a relevant 40 year old rock hero. Struggling to innovate within the realm of whats comfortable to him while still reaching for the outskirts of his mind, soul, talent.

If we could only have musicians this enthusiastic about music, we'd be spared a lot of the garbage out there.

May 6, 2009 at 6:07 p.m.

Gregor

Take the whole "sell out" crap and put it aside for a sec. How many musicians have written the amount of music that Billy has? You can argue all you want about whether or not it's any good, but that all subjective. I love it and I know there are millions of other people that love it. I could care less about what he does to make money, why does that even matter? I don’t care about who he hangs out with. I don’t care about what kind of toothpaste he buys and uses. I only care about the music that he makes. I might not connect with him on any other level, but I connect with him there. Did any of the songs magically change when he committed the sin of "selling out"? No! The only thing that changed was the perception of those songs. If your view of music can be swayed so easily, maybe you don’t like actual music as much as this “ideal” of what music should be.

Bring it back to the basics. Bring it back to Music, the thing that is supposed to matter. Billy is one of the greatest musicians of our time. You don't have to like him or his music to appreciate that fact. Billy can be a hypocrite, a liar, a sellout or whatever, but you can’t undo the fact that he’s created more music than almost any other artist of our age.

Go here for a discography and you'll see what I mean:
http://www.spfc.org/songs-releases/song.html?song_type=-1&song_display=