BILLY CORGAN Angry At 'Middling' Reviews For New SMASHING PUMPKINS Album

Now that the new SMASHING PUMPKINS album, "Monuments To An Elegy", has been released, mainman Billy Corgan said in a new interview with The Guardian that he's stupefied by the "three-star" reviews the disc is getting. Corgan explained, "I thought for sure I would get really strong reviews for our new album, based on all the feedback I was getting. But I'm getting the same reviews I got back in the day, these kind of middling, muddling reviews that just won't fucking say: 'This is a fucking brilliant album from a brilliant artist.' It's always got to have a qualifier to it."

Corgan told The Pulse Of Radio a while back that he puts an painstaking amount of effort into every song he records. "I'm more detail-oriented probably than anybody I've worked with," he said. "People commonly call it perfectionism, but I feel a little bit like a painter, because as the person who sort of generates the original idea and writes the song, I have to sort of put it all together. So it's like, if some element is not supporting another element that I'm intrinsically involved in, then there's some part of me getting disappointed."

The SMASHING PUMPKINS frontman told The Guardian that he is not concerned about the bad reviews in the traditional press. He explained: "I'm not bothered by it on that level. What I'm bothered by is … how many years do I have to put in at the company? I don't want a gold watch, I just want what's fucking fair. I started with a group of artists in 1990, and along the years I've had to hear about how many different bands, how many different singers, this is the next big thing, this is the next NIRVANA."

Corgan added, "Here we are 25 years later, and how many fucking people are left?... There should come a point where it's like, 'Welcome to the rock 'n' roll club.' If I'd gotten the reward for the work I did during this generation that you love so much — the '90s — then maybe I wouldn't be looking for it now."

The PUMPKINS founder and sole remaining original member sounded a similar note in an interview with Billboard, saying, "Let's say you start with punk, '77 to now, I'm up there with the top writers. But I've still got to beg and stoop and be slavish to these great gods who are presiding over what? What are they presiding over? That's my big criticism."

"Monuments To An Elegy" is the ninth SMASHING PUMPKINS studio effort and follows up 2012's "Oceania".

The disc features Corgan, guitarist Jeff Schroeder — the only other current "permanent" member of the PUMPKINS — and MÖTLEY CRÜE drummer Tommy Lee, who played on all nine of the set's songs.

Corgan recently assembled a touring lineup of the PUMPKINS that includes RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE drummer Brad Wilk and KILLERS bassist Mark Stoermer in addition to him and Schroeder.

A second album, titled "Day For Night", is slated for release sometime next year.