Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan says today's music would have been better if Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain were still alive, according to NME.

Corgan spoke about the late musician's role in the industry in an interview with Independent and admits Cobain would have made a huge difference in the music world.

"Now, he and I didn't necessarily get along," he said. "But I like to sing his praises, because he really was that talented. I like to think the world with him would have been a better place.

He added, "And I like to think a lot of the crap music that followed wouldn't have existed if he had been around to criticize it. Because he had the moral standing to slay generations with a strike of the pen."

While they were never friends, Corgan admitted he was devastated by Cobain's suicide in 1994.

"I had a much more personal perspective because I'd been in contact with Courtney [Love] through a lot of the setting up of that period, and afterwards," he said. "I found it devastating because, whether we wanted to admit it or not, he was quarterback of the football team, leading the aesthetic and integrity charge."

Corgan made it clear, however, that he did not idolize Cobain and saw him as a peer instead.

"In the purest sense of the word, we were competitors," he explained. "He and I were the top two scribes, and everybody else was a distant third."

Apart from being the alternative rock gods of their time, Corgan and Cobain shared another thing in common: a relationship with Hole frontwoman Love. Corgan and Love were in a relationship before the latter moved on to Cobain.

Love earlier claimed in an interview with BBC that all of Smashing Pumpkins' hits were about her and the band stopped producing chart-toppers when Corgan stopped writing about her. Corgan, however, has not confirmed the claims.

Meanwhile, Corgan and the Smashing Pumpkins are set to release their ninth album "Monuments to an Elegy" on Dec. 9.