Adore: Vinyl 2LP.

When it was first released on June 1, 1998, the Smashing Pumpkins’ Adore, the follow-up to their mega-successful 1995 double album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, fans were puzzled by its lack of rock guitars, its folk and electronic elements and relative intimacy. Even the album title was misunderstood.

“The funny thing was [it] was a joke that no one ever got,” says Corgan, explaining that Adore was meant as a play on “A Door.” The Smashing Pumpkins’ Adore offered a new entrance to the band’s career, as Corgan experimented with and without the band–whose drummer (and Billy’s musical confidant), Jimmy Chamberlin’s absence played as large a role as his presence might have in the making of the record. The highly personal Corgan songs reflected on the then-recent loss of his mother (“For Martha,” “Once Upon a Time”), his divorce and female issues (“Ava Adore,” “Crestfallen,” “Pug,” “Annie Dog”) and some of the most incisive lyrics he’s ever written (“Blank Pages”).

More than 15 years later, Adore--part of the continuing series of reissues of the iconic alternative band’s acclaimed catalog via Virgin/Ume--stands the test of time or as Rolling Stone writer David Wild calls it in the liner booklet, “the surprisingly beautiful sound of a great band falling apart.”

Capturing a transitional period in the Smashing Pumpkins’ history, Billy Corgan was glad to revisit some of these songs, adding in versions with Bon Harris’ electronic wizardry that proves how the album was way ahead of its time. “I love Adore, but for a while, my opinion of the record was so intertwined with people’s reactions to it at the time. I would say that my kind of iffy feelings lingered long past the point when a lot of fans seemed to come back around to the record–which seemed to really start happening around seven years ago. Now Adore is name-checked by fans constantly.”

Now, thanks to UMe’s four-pronged restoration of this gem, the album can reach a whole new generation of fans, its themes of in Corgan’s words, “disassociation and disintegration and disembodiment” more relevant than ever more than a decade and a half later.

Tracklisting
1. To Sheila
2. Ava Adore
3. Perfect
4. Daphne Descends
5. Once Upon A Time
6. Tear
7. Crestfallen
8. Appels + Oranjes
9. Pug
10. The Tale Of Dusty and Pistol Pete
11. Annie-Dog
12. Shame
13. Behold! The Night Mare
14. For Martha
15. Blank Page
16. 17