Billy Corgan has revealed which ’90s band he thinks were the greatest.

Speaking to Alternative Nation, The Smashing Pumpkins frontman answered the question with apparently little deliberation: “Nirvana”.

Much has been written about the rivalry between Corgan and Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain over the years.


In a 2014 interview with The Independent, Corgan said how the pair “didn’t necessarily get along”. And in 2017 Corgan admitted he had felt suicidal in the past as a result of Nirvana’s success diminishing his own.

Despite the rivalry, Corgan – who used to date Cobain’s widow Courtney Love – has sung Nirvana’s praises before.

“He really was that talented,” he told The Independent.

“I like to think the world with him would have been a better place, and I like to think a lot of the crap music that followed wouldn’t have existed if he had been around to criticise it,” he said. “Because he had the moral standing to slay generations with a strike of the pen.”

The Smashing Pumpkins recently played a mammoth 30th anniversary show with Courtney Love, Peter Hook, Deftones’ Chino Moreno and others.

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