Taken from VH1.com.

The only thing that can stop Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan is himself. Ever since "I Am One" thundered from Gish, the renowned rock scholar has translated his deeply personal angst into the stuff that fills stadiums. He's become a figurehead of alt.rock while remaining aloof from rock's rabblement. And the only way you can ever understand him, Corgan says, is to hear the records.

Corgan was born in Chicago on March 17, 1967, the son of a jazz guitarist father. Corgan has felt unwanted, a feeling that comes from being shuttled around to relatives as a child. The self-proclaimed misfit eventually traveled to Florida to form a Cure-like group called Marked before returning to Chicago in the late '80s, where he created the Smashing Pumpkins.

A friend introduced Corgan to the androgynous James Iha and the two of them literally bumped into punk pin-up bassist D'Arcy Wretzky on the street. With swing ensemble drummer Jimmy Chamberlin on the stool, the Pumpkins played their first gig at the Metro, the coolest club in a scruffy stretch of Chicago's north side, for $50.

The Pumpkins popularity soon matched their music's pretensions. The clubs grew bigger, and fans snapped up the 1990 Sub Pop single "Tristessa." In 1991, they recorded their debut Gish for Caroline Records with producer Butch Vig, who later worked Nirvana into Nevermind. The album roared out of the gate with wah-wah pedals to the floor and metal melodrama on songs like "I Am One."

A proper rock band in a world that preached indie D.I.Y., the Pumpkins supported fellow megalomaniacs Pearl Jam and Red Hot Chili Peppers and took the genre-defining option of contributing "Drown" to Cameron Crowe's loving homage to the grunge scene, Singles. Genres were for the critics. But Corgan's ear was on hearing his riffs pouring from an FM radio.

The Pumpkins graduated from Caroline to its major label parent Virgin Records as Gish went platinum. Bruce Vig was back for 1993's Siamese Dream, where Corgan delved into his obsessions, ruminating on the idyllic childhood he never had. In his quest for perfection, Corgan played nearly every instrument on the album, while loathing himself in lyrics like "Today is the greatest day I've ever known / Can't live for tomorrow..."

Siamese Dream hit the mother lode, with nine million copies sold worldwide. The Pumpkins headlined 1994's Lollapalooza, with Pearl Jam their only competition on the scene following Kurt Cobain's suicide. Cementing his status as a member of the new rock royalty, Corgan formed a close relationship with Cobain's widow Courtney Love and later polished Hole's Celebrity Skin to a radio-friendly shine.

Corgan fed on success, but was inspired to extend his artistic reach. The 1995 double-CD masterwork, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness arrived like an atom bomb in the middle of the Nineties. "Despite all my rage," snarled Corgan on "Bullet with Butterfly Wings," "I am still just a rat in a cage." He was still willing to take on the universe, though. The centerpiece of the album was "Tonight Tonight," a roiling petition to an empty universe that concluded we alone are responsible for our actions. Some called it Kierkegaardian. Others called it straight in at No. 1 and, possibly, the record of the decade.

Then it all came apart. On July 13, 1996, touring keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin died in a Manhattan hotel room from a heroin overdose after allegedly shooting up with drummer Chamberlin. Chamberlin was charged with possession, and Corgan fired him. While the group entered a period of retrenchment, it was now very clear who was at the helm of Smashing Pumpkins.

"The End is the Beginning Is The End" was a soundtrack throwaway - and in Batman & Robin to boot - but took the 1997 Best Hard Rock Performance Grammy. That year's Adore album, however, was washed in the minor-key electronics of Bowie's Berlin period. Corgan claimed it was his love album, but few dug the romanticism of "Ava Adore": "It's you that I adore/You will always be my whore."

The Smashing Pumpkins did adopt a new tour policy of handing proceeds over to local charitable organizations, and raised $2.6 million during their Adore tour. Along with this populist gesture, Corgan also resolved to appease the faithful with the next album.

Next was a reconciliation with Chamberlin, who rejoined the band for a '99 club tour, then stayed to record the new album, MACHINA/the machines of God. The first single, "The Everlasting Gaze," marked the Lazarus-like reemergence of Corgan's larger-than-life rock-star healer persona, as he proclaimed, tongue slightly planted in cheek: "You know I'm not dead / Now you know where I've been..."

After recording the album, bassist D'Arcy Wretzky left the band "for reasons," Corgan claimed, "more complicated than any single answer could hope to cover." Having been the object of desire for one generation of depressives, Wretzky was replaced by Hole's resident glamor-puss Melissa Auf Der Maur. In February Wretzky was ordered to take drug-counseling classes after being busted for possession.

"If you bleed love, you will die loved," pleads Billy on MACHINA's "Age of Innocence." He is forever the sacrificial lamb to a romantic ideal he can never quite achieve. Unlike most modern-day, would-be rock stars, though, Billy Corgan keeps reaching for that ideal, no matter how quixotic that - or the rise of Britney Spears - may be. In the hell of PoMo culture, he's still heroically tilting at rock's windmills.