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

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