Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan has unleashed a savage attack on the music industry, claiming it’s “mostly run by feckless idiots”.

He said: “[They] do not subscribe to the normal tenets of capitalism. Which when they do, the business tends to work out well: stars rise to the top, everybody benefits. But it’s still a parochial business, run by fiefdoms.”

During the interview with CNBC, Corgan said that the tech world was “blowing music out of the water” but admitted that musicians needed to work out what their value was in a changing world. He said: “Music artists need to figure out their true value in a free market society, which they have been slow to do because you have that old model of telling artists they are not worth anything, that they are disposable – similar to the things you’ve seen in the sports leagues, and you are going to see that evolution happen in the music business.”

Corgan, whose band released their latest album Monuments to an Elegy in 2014, also aired his thoughts on Jay Z’s new music-streaming service Tidal. “Although I celebrate the idea of him creating his own model, it leaves a lot of people out,” he said. “To try and sell it as an altruistic thing is disingenuous, because it’s not. He is taking his slice of the pie, which he has every right to do – he is a powerful man and he works with powerful people. But by the way, I’m a powerful artist and I don’t recall getting a phone call from him.”

Smashing Pumpkins are expected to release their next album, Day For Night, later in 2015.

