Smashing Pumpkins Adore CD

Description

With Adore, Smashing Pumpkins return to the forefront of rock to do a dance with a new partner. Trading white-noise vocals and guitars for caramel crooning and dense synthesizers, frontman Billy Corgan drives bandmates James Iha and D’Arcy to a lush aural plateau. The darkness is still there–evidenced in the techno throb of the single “Ava Adore”–but the Pumpkins also tinker with Lennonesque lullabyes (“Behold! The Night Mare”), midtempo electronica (“Appels and Oranjes”), and tender calliope music (“Once Upon a Time”). Smartly, Corgan rarely upstages the watery sounds going on behind him; the trademark midsong blowouts are almost completely absent. Adore will strike your ears and heart in a way you didn’t think the Smashing Pumpkins could. Nobody bought this album and it seemed to signal the band’s dominance was coming to an end. Although the horrible boy groups and unoriginal teen singers were partly to blame, the quality of the music certaintly isn’t. This is diverse, melodic, and dark introspection that was appropriate during a time when the Pumpkins were dealing with death and a seperation from drummer Jimmy Chamberlain. Still, without his intense drums and the usual guitars and pounding bass, these songs have power and meaning. “Ava Adore” is a light rocker with clever lyrics, “Perfect” expands upon the genius of MELLON COLLIE’s “1979,” while “Daphne Descends” is a dreamy track containing some guitar-rock rarely heard elsewhere on ADORE. Some of the other enjoyable moments come from the 70’s sounding “Tear,” which sounds like Corgan is singing with Led Zeppelin behind him, and the light pop in “The Tale Of Dusty And Pistol Pete.” Another interesting element is the use of piano in several songs and this is best seen in “For Martha,” an appropriate ode to Corgan’s late mother. In time, more people will discover the brillance of ADORE because this is definitely music that’s just too good to go unnoticed forever.