Though most of the original members of the Smashing Pumpkins have stepped out of the spotlight, frontman Billy Corgan is still blazing on the music scene.

After a reformed Pumpkins released the group’s seventh studio album, Oceania, in June, Corgan and his new band — guitarist Jeff Schroeder, bassist Nicole Fiorentino and drummer Mike Byrne — hit the road on tour. But Corgan feels live performances are not what they were during the height of the Pumpkins’ success.

“It’s almost night and day,” Corgan told Celebuzz. “Whatever has happened in the last 20 years has really changed the expectations of the audience. It’s really less about coming to see a band do what it does and more like a pre-programmed kind of event that needs to be sort of idealized because of the short attention spans. It’s very strange.”

Nevertheless, the Pumpkins concerts have been resonating with their crowds. “It’s going really well…the people have been great, the shows have been really well-received,” Corgan said. “People are enjoying the new record and…the band’s turned an artistic corner. It’s been very satisfying.”

But the music industry is unquestionably a world away from what it was in past decades. From iTunes and Spotify to social media and product placements, the music-making business has shifted focus from artistry to star-making.

“The business part of it is very complicated,” Corgan explained. “There’s so many forces in the game now that don’t have anything to do with music. You have a lot of people who are invested in things that don’t sell records. They’ll use the band’s name, or your picture, or your video and somehow you end up selling toothpaste.  Are artists being paid commensurate to the value that they’re helping to create, say for YouTube or something like that? Absolutely not. The artists are not benefiting from the energy that they bring to the table.”

And even the musical genres have taken on new meaning — or, perhaps in some cases, lack thereof. “I don’t really know what alternative is anymore. I get the label, but I don’t really get what it means,” Corgan said. “I don’t think the general public really knows what it means anymore because it’s been so commoditized by commercial forces.”

Take the 2013 Grammy nominees for best alternative music album for example, which sees Fiona Apple, Björk, Gotye, Tom Waits and M83 facing off.

“At the risk of sounding sort of condemnatory, it’s all pop…. It isn’t in alternative music,” Corgan said. “I don’t even know how you distinguish what’s alternative because there’s a level of pop to all those artists. But that wasn’t the whole idea of alternative. It was supposed to be anti-pop, kind of. We were supposed to be building the new forms of music, the new forms of song, the new forms of arranging, not basically rehashing. To me, that’s strange.”

But Corgan sees no point in nitpicking about such musical labels in this day and age. “Squabbling about that stuff at this point is almost laughable because there’s so little business anyways,” he explained. “When there’s zillions to be made, I understand why people squabble. But when there’s almost crumbs, it’s almost like a Dochevsky novel, it’s the opposite. It’s like, there’s more violence over the crumbs because there’s so little left to argue about.”

While the Pumpkins continue to create new work, Corgan is branching out from music into new ventures — such as his tea house Madame ZuZu’s in Highland Park, Ill., which he hopes can become “an alternative cultural center” for the Chicago suburb. “I’m trying to build kind of a core business…but around that I want to create a space where three or four nights a week, there’s something going on that’s novel and interesting,” he said. “I think it would be cool to have everything from DJs to poetry to performances to old radio shows, stuff like that.”

And Corgan’s wrestling company, Resistance Pro, just rang in its one-year anniversary. Now he and his business partners are pitching a wrestling-world reality show to networks.

“This subculture has never been exposed,” he said. “We’ve seen shows of wrestling behind the scenes, but never what really goes on, especially at an indie company, where almost everybody has jobs, there’s family pressures, there’s normal life. That’s going very well. So I remain hopeful that we can get that done.”

Catch The Smashing Pumpkins in their final tour concerts: Dec. 8 at Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden, N.J.; Dec. 9 at Patriot Center in Fairfax, N.J; and Dec. 10 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan had a scary moment during a concert in Tampa Bay, Florida on Wednesday night when he collapsed during a song and crashed into the drum kit.

Corgan took to Twitter to explain the situation, telling fans:

And for those that saw me fall last night during Bullet, that wasn’t a stage move or clumsiness, that was me blacking out and wiping out … I have no memory of falling against the drum riser and my guitar cabinet, but I can tell you I’ve got quite a good bruise + am moving slow”/blockquote>

So, while scary, it seems that the head Pumpkin thankfully didn’t do any major damage to his bald melon — and seconds after hitting the floor, he was back up and rocking as if nothing happened at all. That’s rock ‘n’ roll, kids. Watch the incident below!

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We heard that Jessica Simpson and Billy Corgan have some kind of weird relationship, but seeing it somehow makes it all the more bizarre. Jess recently posted the following photos on Twitter, and we can’t help but what wonder: What is happening here?

Take a look and tell us what you think in the comments.

E! Online reports that Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan is now “officially dating” Jessica Simpson.

Yes, that Jessica Simpson. Whose mood swings have been more drastic than her weight fluctuations lately, thanks to a string of high-profile break-ups and the tragic loss of her beloved Malti-Poo, Daisy.

The icy-veined philosopher-king of the grunge generation, coupled with the emotionally tenuous “is this chicken or tuna?” girl? Is this the WTF hookup of the decade, or what?

Well, yes and no.

A quick appraisal of Corgan’s dating history reveals certain similarities among his female companions. Most recently the “G.L.O.W.” singer was romantically linked to A Shot at Love siren Tila Tequila, whose shenanigans this year—including a bizarre Twitter death hoax and a headline-grabbing feud with her former beau, San Diego Charger Shawne Merriman—haven’t exactly screamed stability.

And consider Corgan’s on-again, off-again girlfriend, Courtney Love. Many believe that to merely look into Love’s eyes is to be immediately drawn into an bottomless abyss of insanity, and those people are right. Corgan actually managed to escape her hysterical clutches once, only to later move in with her. What does that say about what he looks for in a woman?

Simply and delicately stated, it appears that Corgan likes ‘em fragile.

We can only imagine that Amy Winehouse is sitting by the phone right now, awaiting the call…

Have Courtney Love and Billy Corgan buried the hatchet?

Celebuzz spies caught Love, 44, attending a Smashing Pumpkins concert in Los Angeles on Wednesday night. Corgan is lead singer, guitarist and composer for the band.

Love was “feeling no pain,” an eyewitness says, floating around the Gibson Amphitheater where the Pumpkins stopped as a part of their 20th anniversary.

Love and Corgan, 41, had a falling out over Love and Kurt Cobain‘s daughter Frances Bean Cobain.

In July of this year, the pair—who dated prior to Love marrying Cobain—were collaborating on Courtney’s forthcoming record, tentatively titled Nobodies Daughter.

Courtney asked Billy to help Frances Bean ring in her sweet sixteen (to be held a month later on August 16) with a special performance. But Corgan’s anniversary tour came together, reportedly forcing him to cancel the coming-of-age gig.

Love took to her MySpace blog, often packed with misspellings and incoherent thoughts, to berate Corgan for ruining her daughter’s party.

“A sweet sixteen is a big event and I think she looked upon you as family. I know she did, as a trustworthy and wise (child), and you can’t lay your s— on a child of [m]ine, and you as a man of 40 — my child sobbing, due to you, is unacceptable,” Love wrote.

For all anyone knew, the pair have been estranged ever since—so why is Love now taking to partying at his performances?

Just curious…