Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan Calls Taylor Swift ‘Gifted,’ Defends Length of ‘Tortured Poets’
Written by djfrosty on June 3, 2024
The length of Taylor Swift‘s two-hour The Tortured Poets Department album is just smashing, as far as Billy Corgan is concerned.
In an Irish Times interview published Monday (June 3), the Smashing Pumpkins frontman defended the pop star’s polarizing decision to include a whopping 31 songs on her latest project, giving her high praise in the process.
“Taylor Swift is one of the most gifted pop artists of all time,” he told the publication. “How is it a bad thing that she’s releasing more music? I can’t follow that … You can go on Spotify and just skip it.
“People complained about the length of my last album, Atum,” he added, citing his band’s own two-hour-plus record released in 2023. “I thought, ‘Well, just go make your own playlist. Just listen to the record one time – rag over the six or 10 songs you like and make your own record.’ Why is this such a strange concept?”
The interview comes amid Swift’s sixth straight week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with Tortured Poets, which the 14-time Grammy winner had originally promoted as being just 16 tracks long. Two hours after it dropped at midnight on April 19, however, she unveiled 15 more songs as part of a surprise “Anthology” double album.
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The project went on to sell 2.61 million equivalent album units in its first week, blowing the singer’s previous personal benchmark of 1.653 million for 1989 (Taylor’s Version) out of the water. It also made Swift the first artist to ever occupy every spot of the Billboard Hot 100 top 14 at once, led by chart-topper “Fortnight” featuring Post Malone.
While making his case for Tortured Poets‘ run-time, Corgan also spoke about his late friend Sinéad O’Connor. The Irish singer-songwriter died of natural causes at age 56 last year.
“Let’s go back to Sinéad for a second,” the “1979” singer told the publication. “Now that Sinéad’s gone, would it be a bad thing if somebody turned up tomorrow and said, ‘Hey, I just found this tape, and there’s enough for 20′ – or 30 or 50 – ‘Sinéad songs.’ Would that be a bad thing?”