Charlie Benante (Anthrax, Pantera) supports Billy Corgan’s claim that rock was suppressed in the late 1990s

The guitarist and singer of The Smashing Pumpkins Billy Corgan recently proposed an intriguing conspiracy theory in which he claimed that rock and metal’s presence in popular culture and the media had been deliberately suppressed, as per theprp. Earlier this year, Corgan discussed the issue in an episode of his podcast, “The Magnificent Others.” Corgan went into great detail about that hypothesis, claiming that in the 1990s, a covert industry-wide campaign aimed to discredit rock music in favor of rap, pop, and country music. This purge was presumably motivated by executives’ desire to boost earnings by promoting musicians with a broader appeal who were easier to manipulate and control, such as boy bands, pop groups, and the like.

I think, and I will say it overtly, I think that rock has been purposely dialed down in the culture. [It began in the] late ’90s. I think the first, and again this gets wizard behind the curtain, right? Somebody’s going to say, ‘Well, how do you know who was the wizard behind the curtain?’ All I know is I saw the gravity shift ,okay?

If you were at MTV, or around MTV in 1997-98, suddenly they decided rock was out, when rock was very, very high up in the thing. And it was replaced by rap. They immediately changed the way… their standards and practices immediately shifted. So now that things that weren’t allowed were suddenly allowed, people were waving guns. Okay, so some people assert that the CIA was involved in all that. Again, above my paygrade. But I saw it happen. I did witness it happen.

And of course great music came out of it. So it’s not like, it’s not a barren wasteland where something was pushed in that replaced something. Qualitative things and great artists came in, but there was this overt shift. I saw it happen. And then now as you pointed out rap seems to be waning in terms of its cultural influence. Pop is completely dominant.

Rock is probably the most dominant ticket-selling thing in the western world, and yet there’s almost no representation of rock in culture. So why do we have that schism? I think they purposely dialed down the ability of rock stars to have a voice in the culture. Or… those who exist within the ecosystem are basically… they know they’ll color between the lines so they don’t have to worry about that.

The sharp drop in rock music sales over the last 20 years seems to support Corgan’s theory, at least in part. Its market share on the charts has significantly decreased from when it was the most popular genre. Harder rock has traditionally been viewed as at least something of an afterthought by mainstream media and industry-tailored award events, which only acknowledge it at pre-shows and provide little in the way of in-depth coverage. It turns out that Charlie Benante, the drummer for Anthrax and Pantera, is a believer in Corgan’s notion and was recently questioned about it by Hot Metal. Benante even went so far as to identify a possible culprit.

That’s something I’ve been saying for the longest time. He just said it in a more eloquent way but these f*cking gatekeepers who still prevent our type of music from the masses (accessing it) … they just kind of chain us and they don’t give us the chances that we deserve that they give other music.

Country music, man? I mean, I’m not in it, I don’t dig it, I appreciate what they do. But that music is so … it’s saturated. You know, the whole pop … they open the gates for this type of stuff. I mean rock music still has a voice, there’s a movement, you know? People need to recognise it again, what it is.

There was a coup.

I think who did it … I want to say Clear Channel, all of a sudden they started buying up radio stations and replacing … I’ll give you a perfect example. In LA, there was this radio station called KNAC. That station was one of the greatest stations because it gave rock fans a place to go, a dial. Turn your dial, here’s KNAC.

When they removed KNAC [Libernman Broadcasting bought KNAC, not Clear Channel,] that market over there dropped so much. It changed and then it spread around the country. MTV too, remember? MTV one day said ‘we’re done playing this type of stuff’. It hurt the music business. Look what happened. Nobody came to rescue us.