Billy Corgan has found himself entangled in countless feuds over the years, with everyone from his former Smashing Pumpkin bandmates to Courtney Love to Soundgarden. His latest beef, however, is not with a fellow musician but rather Anderson Cooper. Yes, Corgan has managed to draw the ire of CNN’s favorite black t-shirt-wearing, Vanderbilt heir of a newsman.
As Alternative Nation points out, Corgan was called out in a recent edition of “RidiCulist” on Cooper’s CNN program, Anderson Cooper 360. Specifically, Cooper threw shade at the Pumpkins frontman for appearing on a recent cover of PAWS Magazine and his involvement in a commercial for a local furniture store.
“So perhaps Billy Corgan is I don’t know, off his alternative rocker,” Cooper commented, “but I think maybe there’s more to this, maybe he’s being ironic, or maybe when the cool rock stars start doing less rock starry things, it kind of makes us face our own morality. See I want R.E.M. to stay just the way I know and love them, I don’t want Everybody Hurts to suddenly be used in an Excedrin commercial. I don’t ever want to see a product called Eddie Vedder’s Prune Jam. I want to see neither Stephen Malkmus nor Thom Yorke on the cover of AARP magazine.”
Corgan responded to Anderson on Twitter, defending his association with PAWS while also referring to Cooper as a “globalist shill.”
@andersoncooper Sorry to disappoint, but when I'm not raising cain for a great organization like @PAWSchicago, I'm still making REAL music
— Billy Corgan (@Billy) October 31, 2014
In Corgan’s defense, he’s raised thousands of dollars for homeless animals through his association with PAWS. It’s also worth noting that Cooper himself has posed with cats in the pass.
Instead, Cooper would have been better served calling him out for his 500,000 word long memoir, or his eight-hour ambient drone performances.
