Adore (The Smashing Pumpkins Album) - Reception and Aftermath

Reception and Aftermath

Critical reception to Adore was generally positive. Greg Kot of Rolling Stone magazine regarded Adore as "the most intimate album the Pumpkins have ever made and also the prettiest, a parade of swooning melodies and gentle, unfolding nocturnes." Ryan Schreiber of Pitchfork Media described the album as "the Pumpkins' best offering since Siamese Dream." Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic described Adore as "a hushed, elegiac album that sounds curiously out of time," though he noted that the album "ultimately isn't a brave step forward." Adore was considered one of "an inspiring range of 25 classic alternative American albums" by The Guardian. The lyrics received particular praise from critics—Jim DeRogatis of the Chicago Sun-Times, who in 1993 had criticized Corgan's lyrics as "too often sound like sophomoric poetry", said Corgan "took a big leap forward as a lyricist" starting with Adore. Schreiber, who criticized Mellon Collie as "lyrical rock-bottom", called Adore's lyrics "poetic", particularly singling out "To Sheila". Greg Kot emphasized the "oblique, private longings, and weighty, sometimes awkward conceits" in the lyrics, while David Browne of Entertainment Weekly called them "unsettled and unsettling." The contributions of Wretzky and Iha also received praise, with Kot noting that "Iha's quirky guitar accents and Wretzky's unflashy resolve give Adore a warmth and camaraderie no other Pumpkins album can match."

Despite this, public reception to Adore was lukewarm. Adore entered the Billboard album charts at number two with 174,000 units of the album sold, and was certified platinum by the RIAA five weeks later, but the album soon departed the charts, leaving Adore far short of the sales figures of its predecessors. Two additional promotional singles, "Crestfallen" and "To Sheila", were released to radio stations but failed to gain traction and were never released as commercial singles. As of May 2005, Adore has sold 1.1 million units in the U.S., and at least three times as many copies worldwide.

Corgan initially blamed fans for the failure, then himself, saying that he "made the mistake of telling people it was a techno record" and that if he "would have told everyone Adore was the Pumpkins' acoustic album we would have never had the problems that we had." By the end of 1998, Corgan, who would later call the making of Adore "one of the most painful experiences of my life", was already writing material for the band's next album, and Jimmy Chamberlin was readmitted into the band.