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

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