Artist · chart history
Billy Corgan
Solo artist Chicago United States
Billy Corgan is an artist from Chicago. Billy Corgan has 3 chart appearances on 3 radio countdowns from 3 stations on RockLists, spanning 2005. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “A-100”, which appears on 2 lists with a best position of #71. The station that charted Billy Corgan most often is Q101 (Chicago, IL), with 1 appearance. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2005.
Billy Corgan spent the '90s as the co-founder, lead guitarist, main songwriter and singer of the Smashing Pumpkins, the one constant in the band, and he is credited with helping make alternative rock popular. When he went solo in 2005 with TheFutureEmbrace, though, he left the wall of guitars mostly behind. The record leans into synth-pop, all chilly electronic pulse and shimmering haze, with that unmistakable nasal ache floating on top like a ghost in the machine.
The road there was a winding one. Corgan, born in 1967, formed the Pumpkins in Chicago in 1988 with guitarist James Iha, soon joined by bassist D'arcy Wretzky and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin. After the band broke up in 2000 he and Chamberlin started Zwan, and when that ended he put out a book of poetry, Blinking with Fists, in 2004. "Walking Shade" is the solo album's most direct moment, a pulsing electro-rock track that sounds like the Pumpkins run through a cold circuit board, and "A-100" also made the countdowns.
The solo turn didn't last long: he brought the Smashing Pumpkins back in 2007, now with himself and a changing cast of players. He has returned to solo records since, with Ogilala in October 2017 and Cotillions in 2019, and since 2017 he has also owned the National Wrestling Alliance, which is not a sentence anyone predicted in the '90s.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Billy Corgan on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A-100 | 2 | #71 | – | 2005 | |
| 2 | Walking Shade | 1 | #133 | – | 2005 |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Every countdown appearance
| Year | # | Song | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | 71 | A-100 | Q101 Top 101 Songs of 2005 |
| 2005 | 133 | Walking Shade | Y100 Top 150 Songs of 2005 |
| 2005 | 389 | A-100 | ModernRock.com Top 400 Songs of 2005 |
Comments
Log in or create a free account to join the conversation about Billy Corgan.
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts.