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

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.

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.