"Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" by the Smashing Pumpkins

I'm not so sure, since portions of Mellon Collie were near enough pointing the way to Adore - songs like 'Stumbleine' pointed the way to 'To Sheila', 'In the Arms of Sleep' to 'Once Upon a Time', '1979' to the more metronomic stuff such as 'Ava Adore' and 'Pug'... Jimmy could be very light and jazzy, which would have suited the tracks. In the case of 'To Sheila', he wouldn't have needed to play at all.

ok but... most of the reason that record was written the way it was is bc of what happened with jimmy and also billy’s mom dying. it would’ve been different had either of those things not happened. also i think the end of mellon collie might be more tranquil than the rest of the record but it doesn’t really sound like adore at all

i also don’t think 1979 -> ava adore is a straight line

enjoy your ideas though

Doesn't make sense to think about 'Adore' with Jimmy, precisely for the reasons Brad mentions.

i'm listening to Galapogos for the first time in years now and you're right. It sounds as good as ever. Better, even

before Jimmy was fired they had already planned to make a drastic change for the fourth record. this interview is from December 1995, at 14:50 Billy talks about how they've considered "just making records," doing very minimal touring, press, etc. Around this time he also said that songs like "1979" (and later on, "Eye") pointed the way to the future of the band. Of course that wasn't the case because as Brad said, you can't imagine Adore without Jimmy OD'ing, or Billy's mom dying, or him getting a divorce, or the increasingly fractured and acrimonious relationship between Billy & James/D'arcy.

I think one of the more overlooked and immensely sad aspects of Billy's personality is that he's pathologically incapable of living in the present. again, this interview was recorded two months after Mellon Collie was released, they're one of the biggest bands in the world, they've won, they climbed whatever mountain they thought might be insurmountable before Siamese Dream. The record debuted at #1, and as Billy said in that Joe Rogan interview, when his manager gave him the news, Billy replied earnestly, "Is there a position higher?" All of the press leading up to the release of Mellon Collie is not triumphant at all: it's dour and sad and pessimistic and full of doom. Besides the whole "Rock is Dead" thing he'd been going on about since 1990, he recognized how precarious and volatile the band's relationship was and how it could all explode at any moment, which it did. I honestly find that really relatable unfortunately, being unable to enjoy the present because of some guaranteed miserable future. as unpleasant it is to be around and to sit through if you're not in the mood, it rings true for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NhTBjk58mw

^^^ thanks for clarifying flappy, i didn’t know all of those details

I think the death of Billy's mother was a big driving force behind the record - but yes, they were planning on making a different record prior to the Jimmy situation and that's precisely what they did except without him. They were going to further explore some of the "newer" ideas that cropped up on Mellon Collie anyway, and Jimmy wouldn't have sounded out of place on that material.

Adore really isn't the drastic U-turn you lot are making it out to be - you can hear it coming a mile away if you're remotely familiar with what came before it.

i agree sonically, but emotionally Adore is on another planet than 1979, Eye, TEITBITE, We Only Come Out At Night, and Lily. death and loss and grief inform every second of that record. it's not the drum machines and acoustic songs and electronics that separate Adore, it's the really dour vibe of the whole thing. it's a sustained sadness, which is stranger considering how diverse the record actually is musically. yet for me it's as monochromatic as Siamese Dream. as far as the the public & critical reception is concerned in '98, the drastic u-turn of Adore is that there are no rock songs on it. to many people (millions probably), the smashing pumpkins = RAWK, therefore Adore = bomb.

also more trivia- most of the record was written & recorded after all that stuff happened, "Tear" was written for Lost Highway (Lynch didn't like it so Billy gave him "Eye" instead) in the summer of '96), and the guitar break in "For Martha" was demoed during MCIS writing sessions in the fall of '94. they teased a lot of the songs and i think played Ava Adore and

Adore really isn't the drastic U-turn you lot are making it out to be - you can hear it coming a mile away if you're remotely familiar with what came before it.

― Gholdfish Killah (Turrican), Friday, November 24, 2017 12:02 AM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

who are you talking to, your friends who didn’t like it

jimmy missing as a rhythmic engine in the songs means i think the songwriting is distinctly different than it would’ve been had he been there imo

they were going to make a different record anyway but that was billy’s plan for literally every sp album

it's pretty common to run into people who argue with imaginary people in their head and then map the arguments of those imaginary people onto people they meet in real life. i can't count the number of times i've been in what started as an actual conversation, but gradually morphed into the other person yelling at an imaginary person but actually just staring and yelling at me in real life, as if i held the opinions of the imaginary person.

Opening lines to Billy’s new autobiography there. (Title: “Why Am I So Hated?”)

who are you talking to

It's pretty damn clear.

jimmy missing as a rhythmic engine in the songs means i think the songwriting is distinctly different than it would’ve been had he been there imo

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Friday, November 24, 2017 4:54 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I disagree, I think the real difference was Billy losing his mother, which - it goes without saying - is the prime reason why Adore has this vibe which, as flappy bird has said, revolves around loss and death. These songs more or less would have been written whether or not Jimmy was in the band, really. If Jimmy had remained in the band then he would have handled the material sensitively - he was, after all, capable of more than the 'Geek USA' or 'Silverfuck' style of drumming.

idk, this is obviously projection (as is thinking that the songs would’ve been the same had jimmy been there) but i think billy writing with the expectation he’ll be playing off of jimmy is probably different from billy writing to the total absence of that expectation

September 1998:

THIS IS YOUR FIRST RECORD WITHOUT DRUMMER JIMMY CHAMBERLIN. HOW DID THAT INFLUENCE THE SOUND?
BILLY: We made the decision to change the approach on this record before we put out *Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.* We saw "1979" as a real jumping-off point for what the next record might sound like. But would the shift had been so radical if Jimmy had stayed in the band? I don't think so.

http://www.starla.org/articles/request.htm

oh cool i’m not projecting

Yeah, he's implying that Jimmy getting kicked out enabled them to broaden their range, but I'm not convinced that that's the case, and I'm not convinced it was that radical a shift. This is all before we get to the fact that it's Billy Corgan talking, and he's full of shit pretty much most of the time.

oh ok

ok if you don't believe the guy that made Adore idk what to tell you

I generally take anything Billy Corgan says with a pinch of salt, as does any sensible person.

April 1998:

Addicted To Noise: Basically, you pretty much reinvented the Pumpkins sound with your new album, Adore. Tell me about that.

Billy Corgan: (laughs) Well.

D'Arcy Wretzky: Take a deep breath.

James Iha: Take out one drummer. Take out the guitars.

Wretzky: Get another drummer.

Corgan: That's it. Add some keyboards. Play some lame- ass tunes.

Wretzky: (laughs)

ATN: What are some of the things that you went through between the completion of Mellon Collie and recording this album that you feel had a strong impact on the songs and the sound of the album?

Corgan: Well, Jimmy's departure is the biggest, #1 thing. And then I would say just the general decision to let go of the rock sound, even before Jimmy Chamberlin left the band. So I would say those are the two major things. As far as things that went on in our lives, I think James summed it up a little bit. There's a certain kind of mental pounding that goes on when you're playing arena rock and loud music. There's kind of an almost innate desire to want to move to the other end of the spectrum just to achieve a new feeling. I think we naturally gravitated toward something a little quieter and something a little more textured. Now that we've done that, we're ready to rock again.

(laughter)

Corgan: Which of course can be amazing, because if this album does really well, then everyone will question our return to rock. (laughs)

Iha: I love it! 'Why are you rocking when you made such a nice last record?'

Wretzky: 'But you said rock is dead!' Iha: Yeah. 'Why are you going back to rock?'

Corgan: Ooh la la.

Iha: Why don't we do the interview for the next album? Right now!.

http://www.starla.org/articles/growup.htm

bless D'Arcy and James

i can't count the number of times i've been in what started as an actual conversation, but gradually morphed into the other person yelling at an imaginary person but actually just staring and yelling at me in real life, as if i held the opinions of the imaginary person.

― Karl Malone, Friday, November 24, 2017 9:34 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my dad does this to me all the time, it's funny because he always punctuates it with this bug eyed stare at the end like "REALLY, I'M NOT KIDDING", as if he's not totally preaching to the choir

I love Tonight Tonight but that bald chap who appears to be a complete crank (in a bad way) has the worst 'singing' voice this side of Kelly Jones.

"Well, Jimmy's departure is the biggest, #1 thing. And then I would say just the general decision to let go of the rock sound, even before Jimmy Chamberlin left the band."

So Jimmy's departure wasn't the #1 thing, then - they already had a direction in mind.

:/

my all time favorite james interview moment, from this july 99 web chat:

<g60girl> what kind of cars do you guys drive?
<James> I have a Volvo.
<lunatriste> Whats the new album going to be called?
<James> I have a Volvo.

lmao love james and d’arcy

jimmy is also pretty hilarious in the zwan doc

Have any of you ever seen Vieuphoria?

vieuphoria rules

Honestly, the Frogs interlude is my favorite part

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsL-5YjD9Pw

pulseczar rules
french movie theme rules

vieuphoria kicked off a series of events that ended with me singing "Grandma in the corner with a penis in her hand going no no no no no" in my head on a fairly regular basis for several years

i love vieuphoria though parts of it are ponderous

though when i was a kid the dvd release of vieuphoria was like a major event in my life, a real holy grail moment lol

1994 amirite

(this vhs tape was part of my Christmas present that year, I think?)

i never owned it but my friend had the VHS in high school and we'd watch it all the time after school

the thing i remember watching that really got me hooked was a "videography" show on MTV where billy/james/d'arcy ran through and talked about all the videos up through melon collie.

this Apathy Video channel keeps delivering. after a 2 week break, they're back with some more gold. afaik the full tape of this show has never circulated, and the quality is much better than the only clip of it I've ever seen (Fuck You).

this show has always confounded me. they get a 40 minute set at a benefit show, play 3 singles in a row, then Fuck You... then a 20 minute Silverfuck. the swagger and gall of the Pumpkins at their peak right before the OD in New York is just stunning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u589RhkuJN0

As the original poster says, the reason it gets put down is because of Corgan's unwillingness to make an album for adults. If I had been 25 when this came out I'd probably have hated it - the bawling vocal, the post-grunge/proto-emo "you don't understand me OR MY MUSIC" white middle class ethic; the Queen/Prog-inspired pomp and circumstance. It's enough to make a man sick.

But to a 15 year old kid, this tastes like candy-apples. It is a decade old album, and in the same way that at the time we laughed at the Human League, the Smiths and Big Daddy Kane, so to do we about this in 2006. This is why it'll be critically re-evaluated in another ten years and top many a best-of list.

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Tuesday, October 10, 2006 6:54 AM (eleven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Dog Latin was wrong - this album has never went away. It's been in "best albums you must hear before you croak" type of lists since ever.

flappy thanks for that video. hadn't heard this since i was there
27:15>29:50 wowowow

ah awesome! that must've been a crazy show, lineup was stacked

i seriously can't imagine the life of the person who only likes the quiet smashing pumpkins songs. they probably put salt in their coffee and live in a tent in a tree

― congratulations (n/a), Tuesday, November 27, 2012 11:52 AM bookmarkflaglink