Billy Corgan: “Pro Tools Made Music Much Worse”: People who can’t play guitar now seem to know how to play guitar.
Billy Corgan critiques Pro Tools and technology’s impact on the music industry
Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan has expressed his dissatisfaction with Pro Tools and how the technology has transformed the music industry. In a recent interview with Goldmine (relayed by MusicTech), he explained that the arrival of Pro Tools allowed people without real musical skills to enter the industry.
“In many ways, Pro Tools has made music much worse. He brought a lot of people into the music industry who had no business being there,” Corgan said. “Pro Tools, as a way of creating music, has in some ways leveled the playing field, allowing people who can’t sing to sound like they can. And people who don’t know how to play guitar now seem to know how to play it.”
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Criticism of music technology and the arrival of AI
Corgan isn’t just critical of Pro Tools. He also worries about the future impact of technologies such as artificial intelligence in music creation. “Every time a new technology appears, people are right to be alarmed”he said. “We’re already seeing people using AI to generate lyrics, melodies and chord progressions. Streaming platforms buy companies to create AI-generated music, so they don’t have to pay humans. They can just keep the money for themselves.”
Corgan insists that the Smashing Pumpkins’ music remains deeply human, despite the advent of new technologies: “We always use amps. There’s no amp modeling, it’s all raw power. It’s guitars and amps in booths with mics. We still believe in the movement of air, whereas many Rock albums are created entirely on computers.”
Pro Tools: a contested technology
Although Pro Tools has become an industry standard, Corgan remains skeptical. In 2022, he previously compared Pro Tools to an Instagram filter, highlighting how it can transform the sonic appearance of a song, but also reduce the intrinsic quality of the music. For Corgan, this technology has helped create a musical culture where authenticity and skill have become diluted, and raw talent is replaced by digital tweaks.
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