Smashing Pumpkins - ADORE (1998) - their last masterpiece - the poll

dang, lengthy poll

Appels + Oranjes.

good album!

God I haven't heard this in years. Has it aged well at all?

my first "favorite album of all time" that wasn't uh thriller

Gonna listen to it now

'For Martha'. When this album came out I had this track on repeat, every time waiting for the climax when the multi-tracked guitars burst in.

I still haven't ever listened to this. I guess I'm behind.

"For Martha" definitely, but this is a great album all around.

i'm not the one to gauge whether it's aged well but i think uh there's enough restraint in the deployment of late-'90s trendy electronics and much more focus on the alternately gothy and pastoral aspects of the songwriting that yeah it doesn't feel particularly dated

note: i have two tattoos. one is of this album's title

'Blank Page' and 'Annie-Dog' are probably the only two here that I'd destroy, thinking about it.

"Appels + Oranjes" is one of their best songs.

Blank Page is amazing

Blank Page is amazing

― the next night we ate Wale (Drugs A. Money), Tuesday, July 16, 2013 10:03 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've never got into it quite as much as other tracks on here, sadly... and I can't help but think that sequencing it after 'For Martha' was a bit of a bad move. I struggle to think of many tracks that could have followed it, if any!

note: i have two tattoos. one is of this album's title

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Tuesday July 16, 2013 5:08 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Fla Post Permalink

I really hope you don't post this again when we poll Machina II/Friends & Enemies of Modern Music

^ "White Spyder" btw

"white spyder" is a gr8 song

these guys would probably make pretty cute tattoos

http://www.ubelly.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/MachinaII.jpg

fun facts about this record:

"17" is actually the verse melody of this song played on piano

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es-StbxiMBs

the lp of adore was actually pressed in mono which makes for a kind of fascinating listen. don't know if it comes across in this dude's video at all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNe7yRswxbs

Man, the Shame/Night Mare/For Martha stretch is mindblowing.

I would vote for "Shame" most likely.

Yeah, 'Shame' is very beautiful, I can easily see why people would vote for it.

Being in my mid-teens when this album was released, I remember many people of my age talking about this album when it came out. Much of the discussion revolved around what people thought of the album (most saw it as a bit of a disappointment coming off the back of Mellon Collie, I always thought it was a continuation of some of the more slower tracks from that record), the rest of the discussion seemed to revolve around the fact you could see D'Arcy's nipples in the sleeve artwork. Teenagers, eh?

anyway

http://distilleryimage3.s3.amazonaws.com/6312e112c0a211e1aebc1231381b647a_7.jpg

A+O

the "Its you that I adore/You'll always be my whore" sung in the Corgan whine is gross though

Probably "Once Upon a Time" but it's been years since I've listened to this record, so let me get back to you.

As with Machina, I struggled to like this at the time and struggled to get through it recently, although I do think this is way better than that record. It's one of the definitive too-long 90s CDs, but I think it would have been sort of unthinkable and totally out of character for the Pumpkins to do a tight 11-track record at this point.

I get A+O in my head more than any of the others, although "To Sheila" is a grower. I'm gonna give this another listen - should be done right around the time voting closes - and see if any of the more subtle, shadowy tracks wins out.

I remember speeding up the main loop from Adore in Sound Recorder and it sounding awesome, I should try that again and see if it's held up at all...

I like every song on this, but the "all you have to do..." section of "Behold! The Night Mare" puts it slightly ahead.

Night Mare is prolley my least favorite actually

I stan hard for the middle stretch, from Tear to Shame. This us my favorite of the studio albums.

Also, I think we may have done this before...?

the rest of the discussion seemed to revolve around the fact you could see D'Arcy's nipples in the sleeve artwork

i was no longer a teenager at this point but i do remember this

nothing much about the record tho

Thank you Nicky, killer idea

I have no idea what to pick right now

at least i have plenty of time to listen to it again before choosing.

Shame

Yeah

I'm always a little intrigued by how much love this album seems to get from people Treeship's age. As much as I love Siamese Dream, I had completely checked out by this point. Maybe I'll listen again for this poll. I know I've heard the whole thing at one point but not that much stands out, except for "Shame" and "Ava Adore". This was where they largely abandoned heavy guitar rock, right?

It was Corgan's attempt at making something a little bit more scaled down and intimate, perhaps. But true to form, even with that in mind, he still couldn't resist making the album stupendously long and making loads of detours into electronic waters e.g. 'Pug', 'Appels + Oranjes' etc.
I prefer to see the record as a continuation of some of the things that were explored on the second disc of Mellon Collie... taking tracks like 'In The Arms Of Sleep', '1979', 'Stumbleine' and 'Beautiful' and kinda running with those themes, as well as continuing the piano-based writing that he'd begun to explore on Mellon Collie's title track.

I never heard this at the time (was put off by 'Ava Adore') but I did get around to it eventually - it's samey and overlong but there are some really pretty songs on here. Voted 'Shame' but it was close between that and 'To Sheila'.

the singles are the weak point on this album imo

I prefer to see the record as a continuation of some of the things that were explored on the second disc of Mellon Collie... taking tracks like 'In The Arms Of Sleep', '1979', 'Stumbleine' and 'Beautiful' and kinda running with those themes, as well as continuing the piano-based writing that he'd begun to explore on Mellon Collie's title track.

yep

i voted for "To Shiela", although i might have voted "For Martha" if i hadn't seen all the love for it on this thread. Adore was actually the first smashing pumpkins album i owned. i loved it so much that i then worked back to mellon collie and eventually siamese dream.

i was 15 when it came out

I was 21 or 22 when this dropped and I loved it after loving what came before it

After this album everything went to shit basically; it's my favorite Pumpkins album

Btw - and this is important - you kinda have to listen to Adore late at night to fully appreciate it, by yourself

When you're dog tired and lonely and loopy. I mean, it's great anytime, but under those circumstances....just wow.

So it turns out that I have most of this on my iTunes. Starting it now. OK. See, the thing is, I listened to them for the noisier, shoegaze-informed take on anthemic hard rock, the dense guitars, not for ballads, primarily.

(Nor for electronica.)

never heard this before. am listening now. will vote.

Ha, this album is some bullshit.

i'm not usually big on the pumpkins

Lol what? xp

See, the thing is, I listened to them for the noisier, shoegaze-informed take on anthemic hard rock, the dense guitars, not for ballads, primarily.

you're probably not gonna feel this album except for the ebow work on "shame"

which i see you clarified above

we must never be apart

"it is you that i adore/you will always be my whore"
with these words, billy corgan sabotaged his career and it was all downhill from there

so Tear was written for the Lost Highway soundtrack, but was rejected by Lynch. Eye was used instead. For some reason, the wikipedia entry for Eye mentions that

In the aftermath of the quadruple-platinum Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, Billy Corgan's music publisher suggested he collaborate with basketball superstar and rapper Shaquille O'Neal, who had begun work on You Can't Stop the Reign.[1][2] Corgan began work on a programmed backing track loosely inspired by Dr. Dre, but the collaboration fell through.[2]

uh

Yeah! Strangely enough, Corgan brought this up in an interview as recently as a couple of years ago... it's on Youtube somewhere, I'll have to remember which one it was.

Man, tried so hard to like this album, saw them on the tour for it (including an acoustic show at the Grand Ol' Opry). . . but it was clear the magic was long gone. Then came 'Machina' and it basically took a decade before I could even listen to 'Siamese Dream' or "Set the Ray to Jerry" or "Glynis" again.

hoooooly shit @ shaq'ing pumpkins

Second half still stands up imo

I have a clear memory of my high school alt-rock buddy declaring, after "Eye" and "The End Is The Beginning Is The End," that "they're on two strikes with me." "Ava Adore" was strike three. I personally loved both of those first two, but the third didn't click at all, and I think I didn't really buy the album until 99x happened to put "Daphne Descends" into rotation for a bit and I thought that was kind of cool. Even that's telling though, cause I was a die-hard fan of MCIS and should have been a prime buyer for the new record.

yeah, as someone with a general appreciation for all sorts of '90s alt-rock commercial failures, i respect the passion some people have for this album, but i just can't share it. "Perfect" was a nice single, though. "Daphne Descends" is good too, wish they'd played that on the radio here too.

I recall a lot of people at the time being down on this record because of its lack of Jimmy Chamberlin, but at the same time I honestly don't think his flashy style would have suited a lot of these tracks. I could imagine him on 'Perfect', 'Once Upon A Time' and maybe 'For Martha', but that's about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDwXwTbyuNg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B529RDSjiYw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC2fVhVrGZA

What happened to BC's voice btw? It was always pretty limited but I find it really unpleasant in this period, especially contrasted with the softer music here. Did touring just kill his higher register and dynamic range (as it was)?

I guess it was also just mixed lower on the earlier albums.

"shame" has aged really well.. or maybe i'm just more predisposed to mellow doom rock these days.

I guess it was also just mixed lower on the earlier albums.

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Saturday, July 20, 2013 7:36 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think it was more that he used to sing softer. Listening to tracks on Siamese Dream is sounds like he sings a lot softer and quieter, giving his voice that more 'angelic' sound like on the verses to 'Today', 'Soma' etc. By the time he got to Adore I guess he tried to project more, giving it a more harsher (some may even say whinier) quality. I think his very soft voice would have suited this album.

that's probably a pretty typical trajectory for rock singers. at first they're shy in the vocal booth, but after a few years of screaming in front of crowds, they have no problem projecting in the studio. most people don't have voices as divisive as Corgan, though.

Yeah Corgan's voice is def the wild card factor here

siamse dream, he was working this inflection point where he could gracefully navigate from angsty loud to a unique kind of soft breathiness. melon collie and onward, vocals sound like they were recorded "closer"' or more detailed or something. really bad. his voice was so painterly and fluid circa siamese dream.

His voice is also really really well-paired with the sound of Siamese Dream, the wall of overdubbed churning guitars and this one nasally, nerdy space-boy with a heart cutting through the madness. He totally can pull other things off, mind you, but he definitely sometimes sounds a little adrift without that stuff backing him up. And then Machina is LOUD but by then so are his vocals, as I think Turrican and some dude get at well.

I feel like songs like Daphne Descends and Appels + Oranjes flirt with an almost comedic level of pretension. Both songs start out almost emphasizing how ill-suited Corgan's whine is to atmospheric electro-Gothic pop, and are only redeemed by the production on the former, or by the hooks on the latter.

The singles are not the weak point of this album.
Lack of jimmy is the weak point.

This is more like smashing pumpkin's the wall where the presence of corgan becomes overbearing.

Lack of jimmy is the weak point.

lol that was supposed to be:

Lack of jimmy is the weak point.

wish they'd done an album with Kenny Aronoff on drums, that would've been jammin'

This is more like smashing pumpkin's the wall where the presence of corgan becomes overbearing.

― Moka, Sunday, 21 July 2013 06:44 (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The documentary I posted above is rather telling of the general mood in the Pumpkins at this point, I think. D'Arcy is complaining about the length of time it took to make the record within the first couple of minutes, James doesn't seem to be interested in talking about the record or the band very much, and Corgan looks quite burned out. Watch that Adore documentary followed by any interview with him in the last couple of years (or even interviews circa Siamese Dream) and its like day and night - yes, Corgan will always have his little 'Corgan-isms', but he looks far more sombre, tired and burned out than usual in that Adore documentary. While there has always been a constant imbalance in the workload in the first incarnation of the Pumpkins (as difficult as it is to believe, the "new" Pumpkins of Oceania is FAR more democratic in the studio - you'd think it would be the opposite), I get the feeling that he was truly overworked at this point, and that he took it upon himself to pull this album together, thus burning himself out as a consequence - although one, too, could argue that he himself made it that way. They looked like they were seriously ready to call it a day as a band at this point, and I'm impressed they managed to get Adore and MACHINA/The Machines Of God out before Corgan finally pulled the plug.

"D'Arcy is complaining about the length of time it took to make the record"

did she even ever play anything on any of the albums?

Mellon Collie era studio footage (you can hear Flood in the background):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXBEuXhTza8

whole band played on mellon collie

d'arcy also lobbied for the inclusion of "appels + oranjes" on this record. she's essential imo

xpost:

Sorry, wrong one...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U7QGPz4xmA

About 39 minutes in.

Second half still stands up imo

― Drugs A. Money, Saturday, 20 July 2013 18:15 (2 days ago) Permalink

vinyl tracking and the C-side of this album (behold to blank) is easily my favorite run of sequencing of theirs.

i would happily pay 100-200$ to hear the complete unedited studio and rehearsal reel from the MCIS sessions. i'll listen to six hours of billy tuning a guitar and fucking with an effects rack

^^^
THIS

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

And no details on the reissue yet but they'll be along...

Almost done with that re-listen. Going with A&O.

Appels + Oranjes

but really i could have picked any of 'em, this album is so GOOD

i heard it'll be out in the spring, details in january

Oh yeah, forgot about this poll. "Once Upon a Time" was my fave then, and its still my fave now.

i would vote Blank Page now...

Once Upon a Time nearly makes me cry a when I listen to it. I assume it's about Billy Corgan's dead mom. Either way, it truly is heartbreaking.

ha I thought the thread bump would be for this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpS3g3BfZHc&app=desktop

i keep trying too what you guys see in this album and spending 73 unhappy minutes with it. really feel like Corgan's one of those artists who had his run and then everything after this point is just on a lower level. like i dunno if i even like this any more than Oceania or the Zwan record, and definitely not as much as Aeroplane or anything before it. i'll vote for "Perfect" i guess, that was a nice single.

As you are one of the most generally un-goth people I can think of, your conclusion is not surprising.

Sorry Ned, saw them twice on tour for this album, and I'd still say this is a dreadful album. Not as crushingly horrible as what came later, but Corban's talent (and voice) had soured beyond redemption by this point. Clumsy, awkward, half-baked, listless, cheap yet glossy, boring stuff.

I wonder how many votes "none of the above" would have garnered...

Admittedly, I can't take more than a handful of tracks from MCIS at this point. Still like some of the besides.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

As you are one of the most generally un-goth people I can think of, your conclusion is not surprising.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, December 31, 2013 1:36 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha thanks i guess? i like a good amount of Corgan's '80s "the core, the heart music" favorites, just not so much his twist on those influences.

Haha this album is basically the only Corgan related album I can tolerate, and I actually really like that (guess goth roots and love for all things Cure and DM help)

lmao "the core, the heart music" that will never get old

Prolly would've voted for "Ava Adore." It was one of my favorite songs when it was new, and I think it was a great choice for a first single. IIRC it continued to get played on the radio in my area years after they stopped playing "Perfect" - a song which always sounded unresolved and incomplete to me, and IMO it would have worked better as an album track.

cool to see appels + oranjes in the three way tie. astounded no one voted for the tale of dusty & pistol pete, that song is a total gem, should've voted for it...

and a single vote for to sheila?…. …. …. .. . ..

Blank Page got utterly robbed! Seem to remember to have voted for it, but it's been 5 months so who knows..?

Barf @ Perfect being tied for first

Bottom four are all awesome

i think i voted for "crestfallen"

behold! the night mare is equally amazing

i can't go on digging roses from your graves / to linger on beyond the beyond / where the willows weep / and the whirlpools sleep / you'll find me / the coarse tide reflects sky

adore has some of corgan's best singing for sure, even if he's mixed too high on certain songs ('crestfallen')

I always thought "Pug" was one of the fan favorites on this record but GUESS NOT

the arising version is so much better imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17mQBZkho0k

adore reissue is apparently 4 cds and a dvd

huh

Works for me! :-D

the only time i became the kind of person who downloads live bootlegs was for adore-era shows so i'm psyched for that dvd

Totally buying this

the only time I saw them live was touring for this album and the show was fucking massive

who was the drummer for those shows? Kenny Aronoff? was he actually a good fit?

yes and yeah actually he was. i was mostly attracted to how much they changed "tonight tonight" and "stumbleine" for that tour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyxb18ugWrE

He was fucking amazing IMO

also I'd forgotten which song "Pug" is and wtf how did it get zero votes

mike garson on piano too iirc

for the adore tour i mean

Yeah it's a wonderful lineup. Only 90s Pumpkins tour I missed fully, but they just played once in LA and I think I was out of town or something. They did an Atlanta live broadcast and that's been the bootleg that's circulated the most, great stuff. Been digging through my collection as part of a digital library cleanup and good heavens do I have a lot of demos from around then; I assume they'll be cherry picking that like mad for the reissue. (When it comes time for Machina in full that'll have to be...I dunno, something like 6 CDs at least?)

Anyway Brad do you have a press release for Adore or is this just reissue details rumor?

Classic Wikipedia LOLs, in that we get classic Corgan LOLs:

Corgan initially blamed fans for the failure, then himself, saying that he "made the mistake of telling people it was a techno record" and that if he "would have told everyone Adore was the Pumpkins' acoustic album we would have never had the problems that we had." By the end of 1998, Corgan, who would later call the making of Adore "one of the most painful experiences of my life", was already writing material for the band's next album, and Jimmy Chamberlin was readmitted into the band.

Can't wait for the liner notes for THIS one.

Anyway Brad do you have a press release for Adore or is this just reissue details rumor?

https://twitter.com/Billy/status/423328108393922560

(When it comes time for Machina in full that'll have to be...I dunno, something like 6 CDs at least?)

it's the one i'm most looking forward to if they go for it and do a hybridized tracklisting of 1 and 2

fyi I am relistening to this album right now and goddamn goddamn

/(When it comes time for Machina in full that'll have to be...I dunno, something like 6 CDs at least?)/

it's the one i'm most looking forward to if they go for it and do a hybridized tracklisting of 1 and 2

They better! And thanks for the Billy link.

i also wonder what machina 1/2 is going to sound like, since as far as i know they were recorded separately/differently. the only machina 2 songs that were released in full machina overproduction mode were "speed kills" and "here's to the atom bomb"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2H1y755PQk

for some reason it's killing me that Billy Corgan's Twitter is "@Billy"

I like your new screen name, al

Billy Corgan got the twitter handle @billy???

Probably paid someone good money for it.

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/216789/thumbs/s-BILLY-JOEL-HELMET-large.jpg

We finally have reissue tracklisting. And a Billy rant.

http://m.pitchfork.com/news/54960-billy-corgan-lashes-out-at-amazon-for-leaking-the-smashing-pumpkins-adore-reissue-tracklist/

mono edition !?

is this a SP thing where the albums are actually wanted by the fans in mono ?

maybe Billy or someone saw the reissues of Beatles and Stones albums that were actually originally released in mono and decided that that's what '90s albums bloated with overdubs needed after all

the lp of adore was mixed in mono, it's kind of neat

wait, matt walker of all ppl is remixing specific tracks for this thing?

"of all ppl" i guess he drummed on the record but still, odd

the lp of adore was mixed in mono, it's kind of neat

did not know that.
kinda weird for the kind of group SP are ..

If you narrow "Adore" down to 10 songs, it's a concise, complete album without the Corganian excess. The bloat made sense on Mellon Collie, not so much here:

1. To Sheila
2. Ava Adore
3. Perfect
4. Daphne Descends
5. Once Upon a Time
6. Pug
7. The Tale of Dusty and Pistol Pete
8. Behold! The Night Mare
9. For Martha
10. Blank Page

Although I guess we could argue endlessly on which 10 songs it should be.

yeah man you cut out "appels and oranjes," that's not core

i also think "once in a while" should actually be on this album (and for some reason the super deluxe edition only includes a demo of it?), i just don't know where it would fit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWCw43Mdgw8

think matt cameron did the drums on this, they're gorgeous

it's just like, why did he have to wear a pirate shirt and a Gaultier in the video for the first single?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDo7FE4Mm14

Yay rock

i swear i've heard this before somewhere but i guess i didn't remember everything about it. what surprised me most is how well it would actually fit into the adore tracklisting despite being more sunlit than the rest of it

sounds just like i expected. great song, should've been on adore

Great track.

Reminds me of "Untitled" from the 2001 greatest hits comp... like, why wasn't this on Machina, it's betetr than most of it.

Yeah it's been a longtime favorite of mine since it crawled out in 99/00 or whenever it was (I know I have a few live versions around, including an Adore tour one).

"Untitled" is better than anything on Machina but I don't think it would have fit in on that album. It was a fleeting yet fully refreshing return to their early sound.

"Untitled" is better than anything on Machina

:|

i mean most of machina is ruined by impenetrable goopy production. i don't think "untitled" is a better song than "with every light," "glass and the ghost children," "i of the mourning," "the imploding voice," "try try try," "the everlasting gaze," even "raindrops + sunshowers," a demo of which just leaked on netphoria. it's awesome, and shows how a lot of these songs aren't inherently obnoxious, it's the insane way they were released.

"untitled" is still really dated sounding, and not early 90s like everyone + billy says, the production is so early 2000's. the melody is sort of siamese dream-ish? but it just sounds like a sparser machina song to me

I do like "I Of The Mourning."

note: i have two tattoos. one is of this album's title

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Tuesday July 16, 2013 5:08 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Fla Post Permalink

this is so heavy!!!!

fuck, how could i forget "Wound," a beautiful song (another one though where the solo acoustic demo - "If You Wait" - is far superior). "this time" is a sweet song about the band breaking up, extremely 2000's sounding. this whole record sits really well alongside Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, P.O.D., Korn, Creed, etc. the only truly irredeemable song on machina is "heavy metal machine"

yep. and idk i've always kind of liked how muddy it sounds

yeah idk actually maybe its how loud & one dimensional it is

'Wound' is a great song, easily one of my highlights of MACHINA/The Machines Of God. I'm with spazzmatazz regarding the album, actually. A lot of those MACHINA songs are as melodic and wonderful as anything Corgan ever did, just the production really doesn't do the record any favours. For what it's worth, I've never been a massive fan of 'Heavy Metal Machine' either. I understand what Corgan was trying to achieve with the track, but it doesn't come off well for a variety of reasons. The main one being that, at its core, it's not really that great a song to begin with.

"Raindrops + Sunshowers" is another standout. One of the more Adore-y tracks on the album.

I agree that the Machine production fouls a bunch of great songs. I'm very curious to see what the forthcoming Machina/Machina II megathing affects that.

*how, not what

ugh i just bought the box set

You love it. (Order arriving this afternoon, mp3s already delivered...)

hope the live dvd inevitably rules

Bought all of them so far, why stop now. Probably go pick mine up over lunch.

where'd y'all order from, amazon? the site for corgan's tea shop/panopticon is impossible to navigate...

it's all sold out from madame zuzu's anyway i think

MACHINA next... that's the one I'm really waiting for!

i heard there's a pre-master version of Machina floating around that's more dynamic/less brick walled than the original CD.

It has to be said the liner notes for this thing contain their expected amount of Billyisms. From "Appels & Oranjes":

"A + O" has the distinction of being the first song written for 'Adore,' demoed out during a session with Matt Walker, as other music was being put together for what became the 'Ransom' soundtrack. And here lies another story, as the famed composer I was to share the album's cover with had me summarily kicked off it. Why? Because he claimed the work I'd done was not 'music,' and he would not be sullied by it. To him, and to you, I say it is better to make original noise than lukewarm, adpated themes trolled from the greats. To he, I dedicate this hymn. For what if his shining, erstwhile baton refused to shudder at our collective rebellion?

The composer in question, via IMDB, was James Horner.

"You hurt me deeply," Corgan says, touching the giant S on his chest and pouting.

lmao it's like there's no way that last line is real, and yet, i know it is

is this gonna be available in a single or double-CD format?

yes

i cannot believe there's a studio version of "do you close your eyes"

i know i expected this but the live dvd is really, really great

The audio that's been circulating forever sounded great so I'm not surprised.

for some reason my cats are also really into it

#goth

oh jesus christ the building guitars on the live "shame"

the Appels + Oranjes demo (What If?)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the bonus material is incredible, along with the mono mix, this is the best reissue so far by a longshot, right?

can someone describe to an audio n00b the added value of the mono mix?

Yeah I was listening to said mix last night and it didn't immediately leap out at me as transformative. If anything, muddier.

some of the mixes are different, 'crestfallen' is faster

the original vinyl was mixed in mono for... idk what reason, but that's why the mono mix is a thing. it draws different elements out of the songs, though, i think (and is muddier yeah)

feel like i've definitely unnecessarily explained the origin of the mono mix in this thread maybe five or six times, sorry it's early

finally i can compile an adore-era pisces iscariot

first of all, i can't believe Blank Page got shut out, and i really wish i voted for it. it's hitting me like never before the past couple days. probably in Corgan's top 10 songs

I need to buy this reissue but it's way, way overpriced for me at the moment.

The rain falls
My friends call
Leaking rain on the phone

that line always kind of got to me

i would love love love to hear a remix of "Behold! The Night Mare" (fuck, billy corgan. come on) that removes the phasing effect on the cymbal. listening to the back stretch of Adore this morning on headphones, the effect was absolutely overwhelming. it would be one of the better songs on the album, without it.

Man... It's so long since I heard this album. I remember it feeling like a real culture shock when it came out

I like that phasing effect. I never understood why people were so down on Adore or found it to be an unexpected departure when parts of the second disc of Mellon Collie pretty much point the way to it.

yeah that is a great song and one of my favorites on Adore and the ridiculous title does not serve it well. same goes for The Tale of Dusty and Pistol Pete.

they opened a lot of their 1998 shows with Night Mare, that tour was short but really really great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7lNGFNVIBs

what's the best Adore era boot? I've always loved the live versions of "Blank Page"

this is the go-to one for the '98 American tour, SBD, great performance, includes Blank Page, Annie-Dog, Pistol Pete: https://archive.org/details/SmashingPumpkins1998-08-04.fm.flac16/SmashingPumpkins1998-08-04t12.flac

thx!!

I prefer the European leg of the Adore tour though- it was before the album had come out, the performances are much more emotional, less perfunctory... before the backlash, before the Celebrity Skin controversy. I really like the Dublin show, it's such a charged performance because it was their first show in Ireland since Bernadette O'Brien was killed in the moshpit at their show at the Point in May '96: https://archive.org/details/tsp1998-05-31 (incomplete, doesn't include Blank Page)

video, w/ an amazing performance of Blank Page:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3t0APcz81g

Guggenheim show is great, too. I really love the arrangement of Stumbleine that they played on this tour: https://archive.org/details/sp1998-05-21.shn/sp1998-05-21d01t09.shn

'Blank Page' and 'Annie-Dog' are probably two of my least favourite tracks on the LP, but fucking love 'The Tale of Dusty and Pistol Pete'

you can thank D'arcy for convincing Billy to keep that one on the album, and to not change the lyrics of Appels + Oranjes. D'arcy doesn't get enough credit for her influence on Billy, she had much more sway than Iha in terms of what got on an album, what songs they would record, etc.

If that's the case, then D'arcy OTM.

I know Appels + Oranjes is the most divisive track on Adore, but I fucking love that song, and the (admittedly very dated) techno arrangement. the original demo - "What If?" - was one of the best surprises in the 2014 reissue, much more straightforward arrangement, similar to Pistol Pete:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4LIh9F9ZeE

It is!? I was always under the impression that 'Appels + Oranjes' was a well loved track amongst Pumpkins die-hards.

For me, one of the things that made the Pumpkins so great is that they combined a lot of things that I love. Hard rock? Check. New wave? Check. Shoegazing/goth rock? Check. Proggy epics? Check. And much more...

This is partly why I've always been down on Zeitgeist - Billy felt that he had to make a rock record, but the Pumpkins were more than a straight hard rock or alternative rock band.

otm, always loved Billy's description of the band as a wheel with all the different genres/influences/directions as spokes on that wheel. Zeitgeist is pretty one-note, but so is Gish- there's Crush, Daydream, and the dynamics in songs like Window Paine and Suffer, but there are equivalents on Zeitgeist like Bleeding the Orchid, That's the Way, the last two tracks. Issue obviously is the songs aren't as good.

I couldn't say that Gish was one note, I can still hear a combination of very different influences in there!

"what if" is interesting but i think the final arrangement of "appels" is basically perfect (it's "dated" i guess but it sounds about as good as anything on ray of light does today), the synthetic cymbal/snare rush give the song a kinda dazed wonder and rapid frame-rate that fits and enhances the lyric, it's sort of like the musical embodiment of billy corgan saying "whoa" at a time lapse film or something

I wouldn't change a thing about Adore. Unlike MCIS or Machina, I would never consider tinkering with it.

don't get me wrong brad, i love the way the album version of A+O sounds, but i understand why it's such a divisive track, ray of light comparison is otm and probably has a lot to do with that. netphoria is a miserable place.

FYI Adore probably wouldn't have tanked as hard as it did if Billy didn't pulled the Rick Rubin produced version of "Let Me Give the World to You" off the album at the last second. He wrote in the liner notes to that 2014 reissue that that song was going to be last on the album, and he was in a meeting with a bunch of executives that were visibly put-off, scared, and bored by the entire record except LMGTWTY, so he pulled it out of... spite? dumbass. that shit would've been a hit single.

having said that, I can't imagine Adore ending any other way than with "Blank Page."

i completely disagree that "let me give the world to you" would've been a hit but i guess we'll never know. i'm personally thrilled it's not on the record

yeah it would've been really jarring tacked on at the end of that record, he obviously made the right decision longterm - people love Adore now, I still think it's their last masterpiece - & LMGTWTY as a bland MOR single from this very dark, sad record might've worked and deceived people at the time, but by now it would be obvious to everyone what a cowardly & hedging move.

um appels + oranjes is the best song on adore in my opinion

the machina ii version of LMGTWTY is definitely better

i also find it weird that billy thinks it would've been "the hit" bc by the time adore came out pop had already shifted significantly

Billy in never really understanding the world through which he grumpily drags himself shocker.

i'm saying i could see it being an MOR / adult contemporary hit, at a time when bands like Matchbox 20 were doing very well making that kind of music. it's very much that type of song, you know? he tried to get into the NIN/Manson market with Ava Adore and it didn't work. maybe the same would've happened with LMGTWTY and MOR radio, who knows.

i absolutely LOVED "eye" when it came out, i was totally looking forward to the next album being all depeche modey

I have a theory that TEITBITE was the BOTE for SM commercially because billy looked so silly in the video clip.

But yeah I remember being vaguely disappointed there wasn’t more stuff like “Eye” on the album.

“ava adore” is such a weird song. so moody and glitchy and then there’s a double-tracked guitar solo that sounds imported from a cheap trick song

i first saw the "ava adore" video on trl when it wasn't live and was just called total request and it was just carson daily counting down videos on a couch in a dark studio iirc. think it came on before "as long as you love me." i was completely obsessed with mellon collie and i thought "ava adore" was potentially the best song i'd ever heard, so i immediately bought the record and found it extremely confusing. for months i only listened to the songs that coded as "heavy" (so... just "ava" and "tear"), though i would compulsively read the lyrics to the other songs and make up my own vocal melodies to them (??? literally have no idea why i did this). one night, when i was bored with whatever record i was listening to at the time (eve 6?) i put adore on and listened to it the whole way through and had such a powerful experience that it immediately became my favorite album of all time. i still get that feeling a little every time i listen to it

there are several weird cool digressions on this record, like the muffled piano bridge on "tear" or the "all you have to do is run away" part of "behold! the night mare" (that title is classic btw); the songwriting just feels very open in a way that carried over somewhat to machina and then the dude never really wrote that way again

i'm at the point where i think "perfect" was def the best sp single and is maybe the best sp song

ha brad I specifically cited that part as the justification for my B!tNM vote

also I'm finally listening to the b-sides/outtakes and boy this really is the album where Billy and co. just completely nailed the track selection and sequence

otm

i mean i love the b-sides for this record but i'm glad they're all not on the record (except maybe "blissed and gone" and "waiting")

of what made it on, it's absolutely *not* an intuitive set of songs to sequence, either. you could make a case for seven or eight possible openers!

"to sheila" was an inspired choice as an opener i think; it sets a muted, intimate, dreamy tone (even as "ava adore" comes crashing in after it) that the rest of the album lengthens and sustains

even when the album tries to get hard and edgy (verses of "pug") it inevitably slips into something more blurred and glowing (chorus of "pug")

the arising ‘99 version of Pug rules

The album premiered on a radio station here, two weeks or so before the actual release. I taped it obv. But for some reason, they aired it with the songs shuffled, not the album order. Bear in mind, it was two weeks before the physical release, so I played that tape to death. What they did was play Annie Dog which seamlessly went into Appels + Oranjes... I thought it was one song! And because I played that tape approx 1 million times those weeks, I cannot ever uncouple the two. Even made an mp3 pasting them together lol. It really works though!

lol did they play it in alphabetical order

ah yes, the famous "adeor" edit

Whoa you just blew my mind :D

Seriously though, when Corgan ends Annie Dog with 'fa-ace...' and then that A+O intro comes in... You had to be there prob but it works.

xp lol

lol @ simon

i'm sure it's been brought up already, but this album is really too damn long for one disc. i'm very much in favor of bands releasing long albums on two CDs even if they can fit on a single disc.. like the unwound double album...

"behold! the night mare" (that title is classic btw)

Brad gets it.

behold! the night mare is my favourite

the album is definitely too long but i'm not really sure what i'd cut except for annie-dog

Adore is overlong and shaggy in a way that reinforces its sense of loss and the feeling of actually being lost, and wandering in the dark. To Sheila is such a clear-eyed, relaxed, and optimistic opener, and from there it goes in a dozen different directions, and it ends all so unresolved with Blank Page.

D'arcy whining on the documentary about still being in the studio after ten months when the plan was to record the album in 6 weeks (4 days a week, 6 hour days) = classic.

and the recording process for MCIS had to have been even longer lol

actually the MCIS sessions only lasted ~6 months, early March to late August '95. the record was finished by the time they played Reading that year. pretty remarkable considering those sessions yielded the majority of TAFH as well.

but they were super concentrated & focused in 1995; Adore was much more of a session here, session there type of record, and one that started off as a Billy Corgan solo album (according to Brad Wood, who recorded To Sheila, Blank Page, Ava Adore, Tear, Daphne Descends, and Behold! the Night Mare). The 666 Tapes show the band at their best, one of my favorite performances of Porcelina is 27 minutes in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U7QGPz4xmA

I wonder how well rehearsed they were going in, and hoe much pre-production there was, though? I have a feeling some were rehearsed up prior to going in with others being worked out in the studio and others only featuring Billy (like 'Stumbleine') or Billy/Jimmy only. It's a lot of material!

*how

yeah of the 56 on MCIS & TAFH it breaks down like this:

written for Siamese Dream
Set the Ray to Jerry
Meladori Magpie

written during the Siamese Dream tour ( Gravity Demos )
Tonight, Tonight
Jellybelly
Zero
Here is No Why
To Forgive
Love
Galapagos
Mouths of Babes
Marquis in Spades
The Aeroplane Flies High
Pennies
Ugly

written fall '94 - early '95
pretty much everything else

written during the recording of MCIS
Where Boys Fear to Tread
Bodies
In the Arms of Sleep
1979
Thru the Eyes of Ruby
X.Y.U.
We Only Come Out at Night

Lots of stuff is just Billy at home: Stumbleine, Meladori Magpie, Rotten Apples, Blank... then they recorded the covers for TAFH right before Jimmy OD'd, and iirc they did a few more like Medellia and The Last Song that summer. But yeah most of those 56 songs were written and recorded in a very short period of time, pretty insane. there was a lot of pre-production and rehearsal in the fall of '94, and you can get a good sense of where they were at with the four Double Door shows in February '95, days before they went into the studio. Songs like Muzzle, Fuck You, Porcelina, Thirty-three, Zero, and on and on and on, were all fully formed by then.

a previously uncirculated gem was uploaded today. 2 hour adore-era show, ridiculous setlist & performance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Yvk7X4wmhE

To Sheila
Behold! the Night Mare
Pug
Tear
Once Upon a Time
Crestfallen
Ava Adore
Appels + Oranjes
Daphne Descends
Annie-Dog
Perfect
Tonight, Tonight
The Tale of Dusty and Pistol Pete
Bullet with Butterfly Wings
Shame
For Martha
---
1979
Blank Page

Apathy Video continues to be a youtube hero. This just went up 15 minutes ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHDtCRHFsn4

aw 11:22

the interviewer does some annoying bits in the beginning but his description of Adore as "a wolf in lamb's clothing" is otfm

MTV: Think about those early days in the little rehearsal space. It all came true, didn't it?

BILLY: ...Yeah.

JAMES: I never thought about that.

D'ARCY: Never thought about what?

JAMES: I don't know, whatever he's saying there.

D'ARCY: You don't even know what he's saying!

MTV: Way back then in your little rehearsal space in Chicago, with Stumpy the three-legged cat, Billy was what we call "larging it," saying that "The Smashing Pumpkins are going to be one of the greatest bands on the face of the earth." Cast your mind back then, were you thinking, "Yeah, he's right," or were you like "Right, call an ambulance"?

D'ARCY: That image at that moment, he doesn't even remember that. That's just like etched in my mind, and I'm like "Well, yeah." I just thought of course, or I wouldn't be putting up with any of this bullshit. I wouldn't be putting myself through this hell if I didn't think that something was going to come of it. It was really hard. It was very hard. Stumpy... he was the best part about it.

I love d'arcy so fucking much lol

I do too but Melissa Auf Der Mar is one of the sexiest bass players ever so she is not my favorite bass player in the Smashing Pumpkins.

i too like to rate bass players by their relative sexiness, a good and normal thing to do

it made Nirvana

Haha that reminds me of listening to the early early radio performance where they played "Rhinoceros"--the first proper Pumpkins tune--for the first time ever, and as Billy is introducing it, D'Arcy is just going "No! No! No!"

D’arcy was such a necessary foil for Billy, the only person who could regularly check his ego and mock him and somehow retain his respect. Imo she was more important to the band than James: she would insist on certain songs retaining their original lyrics or arrangements and insist including certain songs that Billy had dismissed as daft (like Dusty & Pistol Pete and Appels + Oranjes) on the albums. He trusted her intuition, and rightfully so.

Daphne Descends 2

:|

not as bad as Behold! the Night Mare only getting a single vote

i think “daphne descends” is finally my favorite pumpkins song. flirted with it all my life

I remember him saying somewhere, maybe in liner notes or an interview, that he was thinking of rocking chairs and molasses in the south when he wrote Daphne Descends one morning alone on an acoustic guitar.

a shame "once in a while" never made album cut because that was my era-favorite years back. the version on spotify sucks compared to the one on the original japanese release

yesterday i thought how great would be if hayley williams cover 'daphne descends'.

Daphne Descends sounds a lot better now than it did at the time. Always felt this album was slightly back-loaded

weird to discover new things about an album i've loved for 20+ years but "dusty + pistol pete" is totally fleetwood mac-core, right

Some days I think that song is the best one Corgan ever wrote.

This album is incredible

yea Dusty and Pistol Pete is great, very fun to play on guitar. Agreed on Fmac comparison. "with raven hands"

Still annoyed I couldn't see the LA tour date for it.

This album is sounding better to me today on headphones than I think it ever has coming out of a speaker. The intimacy of Billy's vocals and the alternating density and basic four-track-demo-ness of the production really really shine.

damn good calls on Dusty + Pistol Pete. i really didn't give this the time of day at age 17, oops.

the alternating density and basic four-track-demo-ness of the production really really shine.

i was thinking the other week that it just... sounds so good

woah so this is the listen that finally sold me on what everyone sees in "For Martha" !

also had a little appreciation post for "Shame" and its Gothy, "windowless bar with the lights on the day after, permanently smelling of old cigarettes" qualities. a lot more indie than i ever remembered.

"shame" is the song that makes me mourn billy's lost sense of space, there's so little happening in that song and yet it really sustains this lonely wandering feeling for almost seven minutes (!!!) with just that bassline and basic drum pattern. it's also the main song i think of when i think of james iha's contribution to the band, love all of the ebowed guitar on that song

I suddenly am finding myself playing this on repeat, like I did when I first bought it

The one-two of "Shame" and "Behold! The Night Mare" is stellar.

after the melange leading up to it, the run of “Shame” to the end of the album is incredible.

whenever I'm listening to Adore I'm like 90% certain it's their best album

I just noticed that the mono version of "For Martha" excises the coda for...some reason. Oh, Billy.

i've never noticed that and i feel like i've listened to the mono version a lot???

that coda is one of the very best parts of the album. it feels... thematically important, in that it's made of these beautiful fuzzy overlaid guitar lines that are very classic pumpkins, but there are no drums

"behold! the night mare" is one of their very best

happy 25th

Oh fuck off no

*creaks, withers*

Hmm, means Massive Attack's Mezzanine is 25 as well, give or take some weeks.

Ah that was back in late April. Close, though!

Hello Nasty too

I need to just get the deluxe edition already, love this album so much

I probably said this upthread or on another thread, but this is one to throw on at like 1030 pm

In the moment, Adore was striking to me, if surprising at first.

In the years since, for reasons others have touched on here, it stands as an exquisite model of pacing and grace in contrast to everything Corgan’s done since - it’s like after this album some switch in his head was flipped and he became a different artist.

(The exception to this theory, the thing that would prove me wrong, might be Zwan.)

Just cued it up at 6:18pm over dinner prep and it’s hitting on all six

This album has always made me feel weird. I can never quite place it. I get an uncanny uncomfortableness whenever I hear it, even though I like a lot of it. Maybe it's a residual reaction to the first time I heard it as an 18 year old (WTF is this?), but I quickly came round to it. It has a sickly, gooey vibe, as though it's on the verge of revealing some terrible secret about itself and never quite gets there.

I probably said this upthread or on another thread, but this is one to throw on at like 1030 pm

― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Friday, June 2, 2023 8:58 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

and laying in a quiet field stargazing

i really understood this record for the first time listening the whole way through at around midnight lying in my bed in middle school. it's built for any sort of introspective state of mind and environment

as i mentioned upthread, a direct result of that night is i eventually got an adore tattoo

yes, this record does not work in the daylight. and barely works outside of being a teenager. thankfully can switch my brain into that space enough to still love it.

agree with this - i 100% associate listening to this album lying on my bed feeling whistful and maudlin

oh i think it works later in life when important figures in your world start to die

Some of the bonus stuff on the deluxe is really good, like the full band version of “the tale of dusty and pistol Pete”

this album suffers from late-90s cram-every-last-minute-of-the-CD disease. it's not that there are too many songs on it (they're all really good), but they all go on for at least a minute too long (except '17' which gets cut off early!)

Save for Ava Adore and Once Upon A Time, I can take-or-leave the opening half tbh - it's all a bit pixie fairy goth for me. Things get properly shrouded and gothic from Appels + Oranjes forward, and that's where my head's at.

"for martha" is heartbreaking tbh

I still deeply regret missing the LA date, the only tour they did in the 90s I missed. The Atlanta radio bootleg sufficed for many years and of course the deluxe version has the DVD of said gig.

for years the only recording i had was the japanese import which had "once in a while" tacked on between "blank page" and "17" - i really love how that sequencing closes out the album.

as i mentioned upthread, a direct result of that night is i eventually got an adore tattoo

― ivy., Tuesday, August 19, 2025 8:12 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

❤️

I ended up seeing them on this tour for free because I was a volunteer usher at the venue where they played

after all this time I've decided this is my favorite SP album

Am I alone in thinking that "Pug" has one of Corgan's best choruses ever? But

they all go on for at least a minute too long

"Pug" unfortunately included.