[Brundisium]

When Adore came out I was about 15 or 16 (if memory serves me correctly in that it came out in '98?).

I was a bit of a metalhead at the time and The Pumpkins were the only "rock" band that I thought could rock hard enough to satisfy me, but through Mellon Collie I'd started to appreciate softer music as well (thanks Pumpkins!). So when Adore came out I actually gave it a chance, which was the last thing anyone expected of me with that album, haha.

I'm glad that I gave it that chance though because although I kinda had to push myself to have a few listens it's now in my top 2 Pumpkins albums (I can't decide between Mellon Collie and Adore).

A lot of people complain about the departure that it took from Mellon Collie, but I actually think that the latter set me up for Adore in many ways. I sometimes wonder if that was deliberate. I also wonder if Billy only had the confidence to put songs like Beautiful and Lily in there because he knew the more accessible songs would allow it.

Then again, maybe he put them in there because the album was sounding too accessible. Either way he got the balance exactly right. Aaaaaaaand now I'm ranting.....

But yeah, honest first impressions?

[Parksey]

I put off listening to it for a little while after I bought it, and I didn't love it straight away as much as their earlier stuff when I finally decided to give it a listen. Some songs I did really like, I think Shame, Once In A While, Blank Page and Pug were my standouts. Now I love every minute of it.

[adamdanger!]

Brundisium, on 15 June 2011 - 04:41 AM, said:

When Adore came out I was about 15 or 16 (if memory serves me correctly in that it came out in '98?).

I was a bit of a metalhead at the time and The Pumpkins were the only "rock" band that I thought could rock hard enough to satisfy me, but through Mellon Collie I'd started to appreciate softer music as well (thanks Pumpkins!). So when Adore came out I actually gave it a chance, which was the last thing anyone expected of me with that album, haha.

I'm glad that I gave it that chance though because although I kinda had to push myself to have a few listens it's now in my top 2 Pumpkins albums (I can't decide between Mellon Collie and Adore).

A lot of people complain about the departure that it took from Mellon Collie, but I actually think that the latter set me up for Adore in many ways. I sometimes wonder if that was deliberate. I also wonder if Billy only had the confidence to put songs like Beautiful and Lily in there because he knew the more accessible songs would allow it.

Then again, maybe he put them in there because the album was sounding too accessible. Either way he got the balance exactly right. Aaaaaaaand now I'm ranting.....

But yeah, honest first impressions?

The departure from their rock sound never really mattered to me. I thought it was cool in a really weird way, much like all the Pumpkin's music to that point. Adore always sounded like a soundtrack to Jack the Ripper to me. It has that nightime, foggy London street feel to it. I stared at the lyric book as I listened. The color of it made think of chocolate.

So Adore reminds me of murder and chocolate. Fin.

[adamdanger!]

Parksey, on 15 June 2011 - 04:56 AM, said:

I put off listening to it for a little while after I bought it, and I didn't love it straight away as much as their earlier stuff when I finally decided to give it a listen. Some songs I did really like, I think Shame, Once In A While, Blank Page and Pug were my standouts. Now I love every minute of it.

Did you mean Once Upon a Time? Once In A While was a b-side.

[Fernando]

I didn't want to like it, cause Jimmy wasn't there.

Then, when I realised that Adore was my favorite time I realised what the "band" was.

I use to say that Adore needed time to accept me. ;)/>

[MonteLDS]

loved it.

[adamdanger!]

Fernando, on 15 June 2011 - 05:39 AM, said:

I didn't want to like it, cause Jimmy wasn't there.

Then, when I realised that Adore was my favorite time I realised what the "band" was.

I use to say that Adore needed time to accept me. ;)/>

I remember a quote from Billy that the album is one of those that takes 10 years for people to realize is really good. I've always liked it, but I definitely have a greater appreciation now. Maybe he knew back then that Zeitgeist would be released in 2007. lol

[Parksey]

adamdanger!, on 15 June 2011 - 05:01 AM, said:

Did you mean Once Upon a Time? Once In A While was a b-side.

Yeah, my bad.

[Simon Belmont]

I remember being a little hesitant. I was 14, and I liked a few tracks, like Ava Adore, Perfect, Tear, Pug...but I wasn't quite sure what to make of the rest of it. I don't remember exactly when that changed, but before long I was in love with it. Now it is probably my favorite album of all time.

[Belteshazzar]

I think it was 2001, when I was a senior in high school.

My first thoughts were that a lot of it was very beautiful, but depressing. And some of the electonic sounds (particularly on Crestfallen) werent totally my style. But I knew I had to give it more than one listen, and that it was something different. And like any Pumpkins album, the more I listen to it, the more I fall in love with all of it! Great album, one of their best.

[adamdanger!]

Belteshazzar, on 15 June 2011 - 06:14 AM, said:

And some of the electonic sounds (particularly on Crestfallen) werent totally my style.

I think that song was the one that resonated with me the most at first. I remember sitting down and trying to arrange the keys on guitar for hours.

[Belteshazzar]

adamdanger!, on 15 June 2011 - 06:18 AM, said:

I think that song was the one that resonated with me the most at first. I remember sitting down and trying to arrange the keys on guitar for hours.

I thought the tune was great, but I didn't like the electric piano feel.

Now I just accept it as part of the vibe of Adore and I'm cool with it.

Anyway....I love how each album is sort of its own world. Each is a real artistic statement. You can get so lost in them..

[TwoHeadedBoy]

Fell in love with it right away.

[Her]

Not for me, put back in Siamese Dream, please.

[ShamanO]

first time I heard it I thought is this really SP? the sound was different, but I could tell it was Billy. I was not in love with the album on my 1st listen. It grew on me and continues to with each listen still. I love it now

[nasalscarecrow]

I knew nothing of Jimmy's absence but thought it was a cool album, though surprisingly mellow given the preceding two albums.

[dudehitscar]

well I first heard Ava Adore when I was young and didn't like the pumpkins much back then. Pumpkins hit me like a brick my first year at college. The first time I sat and listened to it was in a car with fellow pumpkin fans who were raving about it. Quite a bit of it blew me away. by the time Daphne Descends kicked on I knew it was a special record. I bought it the next day and listened to it at work (music store).. Was the softest album I had at the time but I was blown away. I didn't like Shame at the time and now even that is a classic to me.

It's weird to think I wasn't even softer stuff back then half the stuff I listen to these days are soft/acoustic.

[scottytheoneandonly]

loved it the first time I heard it. Still love it.

[paulandgemm]

i'd already saw them play most of the songs live at shepherds bush empire a week or so before it came out s absolutely loved it.. more so then that i do now.

[DeepPurple]

I loved Adore from the first note of To Sheila. My friends all hated it though. It literally turned alot of them off to the band in general. I got so tired of defending that album.

[LostSoul]

I put off listening to it for a long time, as well. It was the last Pumpkins record I heard.

My Mom gave me money to buy it on my 19th birthday, just 5 days after the 11/16/08 Pumpkin show. She was sick with cancer at the time, so needless to say, it resonated with me instantly. I played 'Crestfallen' for her and she thought it was pretty. She passed away a few weeks later, and it really helped me through. The impact never left. I remember not knowing how to cope with it that Christmas morning, and my first instinct when I stepped out of bed was to put 'Once Upon A Time' on. It echoed through the house as the snow fell.

It is a beautiful, sad & haunting record, but it is not for everyone. My sister and gf both hate it because of the lyrical content. Many people have a hard time even acknowledging such depressing music, as if it is an abomination. On the other hand, my buddy who listens to straight death metal was moved to tears by 'For Martha' when I played it for him.

You either understand the impurities and sorrows flowing from his soul at the time, or you don't. If you can't connect to Adore in such a way, then sometimes it is harder to champion it.

[adamdanger!]

LostSoul, on 15 June 2011 - 09:41 AM, said:

I put off listening to it for a long time, as well. It was the last Pumpkins record I heard.

My Mom gave me money to buy it on my 19th birthday, just 5 days after the 11/16/08 Pumpkin show. She was sick with cancer at the time, so needless to say, it resonated with me instantly. I played 'Crestfallen' for her and she thought it was pretty. She passed away a few weeks later, and it really helped me through. The impact never left. I remember not knowing how to cope with it that Christmas morning, and my first instinct when I stepped out of bed was to put 'Once Upon A Time' on. It echoed through the house as the snow fell.

It is a beautiful, sad & haunting record, but it is not for everyone. My sister and gf both hate it because of the lyrical content. Many people have a hard time even acknowledging such depressing music, as if it is an abomination. On the other hand, my buddy who listens to straight death metal was moved to tears by 'For Martha' when I played it for him.

You either understand the impurities and sorrows flowing from his soul at the time, or you don't. If you can't connect to Adore in such a way, then sometimes it is harder to champion it.

Thanks for sharing.

Tale of Dusty made my eyes sweat the first time I heard it and pretty much every time since then. I have no idea why. Music is strange medicine sometimes.

[misguided]

I was shocked to say the least the first time. Q101 previewed it. What was it? Second listen, I liked all of it, loved most of it. But it grew on me fast and now, I LOVE IT COMPLETELY! I want to make love to it. lol. Blank Page wrecks me. My late girlfriend loved Adore too.

[TwoHeadedBoy]

For Martha is as heavy as the Pumpkins ever got. I tear up and get chills at least a couple times during that one, without fail.

[ToTheMystery]

I love this album. I cried a lot when I listened to 'To Sheila' for the first time.

[ZivotSon]

I liked the individual songs a lot but I would kind of get worn out trying to listen to it from beginning to end. For the first few years it seemed like the overall pace was too slow, that it could have used something more intense, like Eye, in the middle somewhere. But I don't feel that way anymore.

[noblegeorge]

I was initially drawn to it more than siamese dream. I thought it was just a more interesting album and the songs were more adventurous than SD. Ava, for sheila, nightmare were three of my favourite pumpkins songs and a few others on that album (tale of dusty, blank pagem once upon a time) also sat well with me.
But i still think its a little uneven production wise and has a few songs that drag it down, like annie dog for instance, a solid b side if i ever heard one. Take away a couple of those, add soot and stars, eye and waiting and it would have been my favourite pumpkins cd.

[Duhze]

My first impression? I hated it. The only song I liked from the album originally was "For Martha". I was expecting songs more like "The End is the Beginning is the End". Then one day I saw a live verion of Daphne Descends, and I was like holy shit that is fucking awesome. Then I listened to more live versions of Adore songs and they started to grow on me. After getting used to all that, I went back to the album to listen to the studio versions and realized that they weren't that bad.

adamdanger!, on 15 June 2011 - 05:00 AM, said:

So Adore reminds me of murder and chocolate. Fin.

:thumbsup:/>

[lucciola]

I was 21 and ready for something a bit more mature, more thoughtful and sober than SD and MCIS. So good timing for me. Like Deep Purple, I spent a lot of time defending SP among my friends. Most of them thought SP was too mainstream, and the ones that had liked MCIS thought Adore was too soft. I remember being very curious to hear how the trauma of Billy's divorce, the passing of his mom, and the loss of Jimmy would affect the music and lyrics. I was interested in how it had changed him and what stories he had to tell about that painful period of transformation. I think my first thought was "hmm maybe Billy has grown up" and my second thought was "This man is so brave. I love him for making this album" I've since altered my perspective on that somewhat but I still love Adore.

[Black_Milk]

It became my favourite SP album instantly.
SP used to have this uncanny ability to evolve musically in the same ways and at the same time as my tastes did, I was starting to get into folk and electronic music and then suddenly SP drop Adore, it was perfect (no pun intended), utterly.

[Arachnea]

I loved it. It was different, yet it was a change that I adapted to very quickly and easily. It felt natural given the problems that occurred in his professional and personal life. I was impressed by how strong the lyrics were and with how emotionally raw the album felt. I also loved the atmosphere of the music.

[purelunasea80]

i loved it the very first listen. on a train from princeton nj back to ny, hours after my then-g/f graduated from princeton, a HUGE container of amazing coconut ice cream from this place in princeton next to me...seriously didn't have to grow at all, which is usually a bad sign...and it sort of was, because my esteem for adore has diminished steadily over the past 7 or 8 years. i still think it's a good record, just not good enough to justify the length. i could do without daphne, perfect, appels, crestfallen, dusty and blank page entirely. rest of it is mostly terrific.

MELLON COLLIE is the one that took me a month or three, which is funny, because as of, say, february 1996 or so, it became my favorite record of all time (displacing siamese dream and the cure's disintegration), and has been ever since.

[purelunasea80]

ZivotSon, on 15 June 2011 - 10:51 AM, said:

I liked the individual songs a lot but I would kind of get worn out trying to listen to it from beginning to end. For the first few years it seemed like the overall pace was too slow, that it could have used something more intense, like Eye, in the middle somewhere. But I don't feel that way anymore.

i think pug accomplishes that.

[purelunasea80]

like someone mentioned above, i feel like mcis prepared us for adore, and not this mook-rock idea that it was some drastic left turn. SP was never all about RAWK, or "all about" ANY one thing; any real SP fan knows that, that the whole appeal is the band's ability to take EVERYTHING great that has ever been in rock music and fuse it into something new and amazing. it also helped if you knew that bc (and james for that matter) was a big fan of things like the cure, david bowie, joy division, depeche mode, gary numan, peter murphy, nick drake, etc. (and if you loved all those things, which i do).

[Starr989]

I listened to Adore once, put it in my trunk for a year then I found it and gave it a chance and fell in love. Machina was like that as well, but then one day I was driving to Ill. I put on the imploding voice, stared up into the beautiful sun and then it hit me. It is my favorite piece of art ever.

[astralweeks]

I needed time to appreciate all the classic Pumpkins albums when they were released. I could definatley hear the quality on first listen though. "To Shelia" was a pretty striking opener. As cliched as this sounds I remember the album finally clicking when I listened to it months later on a rainy day.. the right ambience I guess. It has some of the Pumpkins best songwriting. For better or worse (better imo though), as an album it really helps to seperate their legacy from the rest of the guitar/alt 90's scene. Listening to it now I think it's the closest they came to releasing a timeless album.

[Feriluce]

It was different, and luckily at the time I was maturing as a person as well and didn't need to just listen to the "hard rock" stuff. My first initial listen was one of satisfaction, I suppose the album art helped me understand what the mood of this album was going to be like. Adore has my favorite art style next to MCIS, so that was a plus. I didn't love it as much as I do today, but I was not disappointed either. An interesting move in a different direction from the band I thought and I was curious to see how they would continue to change and evolve.

[blue_june_destroyer]

Adore took a little while to grow on me... it didn't really slot into my listening habits immediately, but when it finally clicked - it became the go-to album of my last remaining teenage years.

[DrownPumpkin]

Belteshazzar, on 15 June 2011 - 06:20 AM, said:

I thought the tune was great, but I didn't like the electric piano feel.

Now I just accept it as part of the vibe of Adore and I'm cool with it.

Anyway....I love how each album is sort of its own world. Each is a real artistic statement. You can get so lost in them..

That is exactly how I feel. Each album really does take you to another world each and every time. They're like different amusements at Pumpkinland.

[Gr3g3]

Adore is great. Love all 73 odd minutes of it.

[CaptainFalcon]

Loved at first listen. Still do.

[United States]

I hated Perfect at first cause they played it on the radio so much. I usually only listened to the 1st 4 tracks though. After about a year I started listening to the rest of it. I really like this album though. I always listen from start to finish now.
I remember in high school some kids in computer networking class got mad at me cause I played For Martha over and over. Haha.

Behold! The Nightmare is the best "hidden gem" on the cd in my opinion. Few people mention it, I love it.

[tangerine11]

I loved it. It was different from their other albums, but not in a bad way at all. I listened to it over and over and it was wonderful.

[MrLee192]

when i first played To Sheila i was like "well this is one boring opener" but after that even though it didnt rock i loved Adore. My main were likes were that it was atmospheric, dreamy and i enjoyed the rigid dance drum machine beats.