Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan: The Music Industry Has Been "Taken Over by Poseurs"

Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan says the music industry has been "taken over by poseurs."

Corgan, who was being interviewed publicly by author Brian Solis at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, said he was part of a generation of artists who "wanted to change the world." Today's musicians, he added, are obsessed merely with being famous.

Said Corgan to Billboard: "I was part of a generation that changed the world -– and it was taken over by poseurs."

Corgan noted that he would have to set himself on fire on YouTube if he were starting out today. He compared being a breakthrough artist to being a "fresh stripper." "Artists that break through now have grown up thinking that being famous is the goal. Not to be respected, not to be dangerous."

Corgan and Smashing Pumpkins will be releasing a new album, Oceania, this year.