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

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

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