Billy Corgan is Mad He’s Not on Any Greatest Guitarists Lists
Billy Corgan is a bit miffed that his guitar-playing skills are being overlooked and he’s not on any notable greatest guitarists lists.
Corgan vented about this to Guitar World. He says most people assume he’s not the one in Smashing Pumpkins playing most of the guitar parts. If he is included on these lists, Corgan takes issue with who is often ranked just above him, who he says he often “could play circles around.”
He notes, “Once you go beyond, let’s call it ‘the Zakk Wyldes and Dimebag Darrells and the truly great Randy Rhoadses,’ there’s a lot of people who pretend to play guitar. I certainly have no problem believing I’m better than a lot of them.”
Despite Corgan being mad about not being more present on these greatest guitarists lists, he at least took a higher road with his frustration than Ted Nugent did back in 2021. Back then, The Nuge took issue with a 2003 Rolling Stone list by Senior Editor David Fricke. Nugent’s issue was that the list included Joan Jett.
Uncle Ted took his grievances to a YouTube livestream in December 2021. He began his rant by praising a number of guitarists from Angus Young to Neal Schol to Tommy Shaw to Eddie Van Halen. Then he says, “So I just mentioned some killer, monster guitar players, huh? Some of the best that ever lived. But when you see the ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine list of greatest guitar players, they list Joan Jett but not Tommy Shaw.”
Nugent continues, “How do you list the top 100 guitar players and not list Derek St. Holmes? How do you do that? You do that by lying. The same way you get Grandmaster Flash in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. You do that by lying. You have to be a liar. You have to have s— for brains and you have to be a soulless, soulless prick to put Joan Jett… [I] love Joan. Some of my greatest memories include lesbians. I love the lesbians; it’s a cocktail of wonderment.”
He adds, “[I] love Joan Jett — ‘put another diamond in the jukebox, baby’; great rock and roller — but as a top 100 guitar player, but you don’t list Rickey Medlocke or Dave Amato [REO Speedwagon]. Really?…By the way, if Grandmaster Flash is in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and Joan Jett is on the list of top 100 guitar players, then I’m Caitlyn Jenner’s boy toy.”
These comments eventually made there way to Jett, who was asked about them in a May 2022 interview with NME. She said, “Is that his implication that he should be on the list instead of me? Well, that’s just typical – it’s what I’ve dealt with my whole life, being written off. Ted Nugent has to live with being Ted Nugent. He has to be in that body, so that’s punishment enough.”
She continued, referring to claims he evaded the draft during the Vietnam War, “He’s not a tough guy. He plays tough guy, but this is the guy who s— his pants – literally – so he didn’t have to go in the Army…So this is the tough guy who’s running around America, stirring things up against each other?”
