The Smashing Pumpkins
Adore

THE REVIEW

There are those bands famous for one album or for particular songs, idolized for that gem of undisputed beauty by both people and critics, but I want to contradict myself a bit too: I prefer "In Utero" to "Nevermind," I prefer "Transmission From The Satellite Heart" to "The Soft Bulletin," "Wish You Were Here" (and "Meddle") to "The Dark Side Of The Moon," and "Adore" to "Mellon Collie And Infinite Sadness"; and it is precisely "Adore" that I will talk to you about today.

"Adore" is not an innovative album, nor particularly beautiful, "Adore" is the album of a specific state or moment in one's life, that moment you go through between paranoias about life, mental disturbances about the world and knowledge, between depressions towards nothingness and infinity, "Adore" is the album of a specific passage, it takes you into gloomy and dark worlds to teach you something.

Thus begins "To Sheila" in a nocturnal summer landscape as if observing a valley illuminated by the lights of the houses, which deludes you into understanding what's in front of you, but gives you the hope to keep going forward. From here you enter the world of soft nightmares and false dreams, "Ava Adore" agitates the mind, plays with the darkest sentiments; "Perfect" is the counterpart, a melancholic dream with the hope of mending a broken shell. The night is still dark and threatening, the full moon lights up the streets and "Daphne Descends" is the right ride for this night, another illusion, another failure, due to one's own mistakes.

"Once Upon A Time" returns to more real and palpable atmospheres, compared to the previous synthetic and unreal songs, an acoustic ballad always with a veil of melancholy and a continuous remembrance of a lost loved one; the nightmares return and "Tear" along with a real tear runs down your face always in memory of the deceased loved ones, almost blaming the world and the dead themselves for what happened, as if calling time itself a murderer. "Crestfallen" is a self-flagellation full of depression; it unstitches the word "Love" from the hearts placing it back in the pocket, perhaps leaving it in a dusty and cobweb-laden corner; the first part of the CD closes with another hypothetical ride this time a "brain-storming" of almost illogical questions, insecure, due to the loss of the supporting pillars of one's life, "Appels + Oranjes" the most "dancey" song of the album, which still maintains the dark air that you are now accustomed to hearing since the beginning.

"Pug" I find one of the best of the album, always on synthetic synthesizer carpets, always the usual illusions, the usual search for confirmation. The stories usually invented serve to make sense a little here, to get out of our real nightmare of illusions, "The Tale Of Dusty And Pistol Pete" is nothing but the mirror of Billy's sentimental situation seen in reverse, with the woman in search and the man on the run. But it's just a point of clarity before scraping the bottom of the barrel, "Annie-Dog" is a melancholic surreal ballad, in a moment of madness he can no longer distinguish reality from fiction, almost seems drugged, immersed in a depression that spreads increasingly without a solution; "Shame" is an introspective song, for the first time he is ashamed of his past, of what he is feeling and what he is ruining, first and foremost in himself.

It's time to return to living, rediscover life and grasp the teachings from these difficult situations; "Behold: The Night Mare" leaves one's nightmares behind, one is ready to walk back on the roads, now less blurred and dark, now the nightmare is seen only in the distance, the sun gives a glimpse of its first glimmers in this long night. Time stopped for a night, but after this "Nightly Thought" everything is clearer, the dead who spoke in the head now leaves only beautiful memories in a long infinite embrace "For Martha" is a special dedication. "Blank Page", the blank page to start writing something new, something that will nonetheless reflect on one's past because the page is blank but in front of it there is already a written book.

"17" are the seconds in which the sun peeks over the horizon,