We are here on this Earth for a set amount of time and we have to carefully choose how we spend each day. As I age, what I think about most is sharing experiences with people that don't just inspire me but who open up the world for me. Discussions over drinks, sharing memories, pondering our existence and absorbing tales of pain is when I feel most alive because regardless of what I am experiencing at that very moment, by not hiding behind a mask, I feel alive. When I hear a record where the artist unleashes anything and everything at the listener, it enthralls me because when I share my inner darkness and beaming light, it's usually with close confidants, whereas an artist isn't holding back on and if anything open themselves to criticism rooted in hate. This may explain my willingness to empathize with Billy Corgan. Many of you who read this will roll their eyes, but for the better part of a decade, Corgan spewed forth a series of riveting confessionals dressed up in distorted majesty. From the psychedelic rumbling of their debut Gish to their mach I swan song Machina/The Machines of God, few artists birthed in the 1990s were as consistent. What makes Corgan so admirable was his willingness to throw himself into his art. This is a man whose b-sides made up separate albums and box sets and while 1995's Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was the band's only official double album, almost every single album they released could have been four-sides. Since Mellon Collie went to number-one, received a Diamond certification (for sales over ten-million) it's highly unlikely anyone ever imagined the follow-up, 1998's Adore would be a double record. It wasn't but listening to the brilliant new seven-disc reissue, it's evident Corgan could have done so.

Adore is a disconsolate album birthed out of incertitude and lament which is blended beautifully amongst electronic weeps and vocals so hushed that haunt you even when the music fades away. The album reached number-two upon its release, but it did not have the staying power of previous Smashing Pumpkins albums and slowly descended the Billboard charts. Despite the acclaim and public embrace of the band over the previous half-decade, at the time, few could grasp the beauty of what Corgan was expressing through his music. Between the release of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness in the fall of 1995 and the release of Adore in the spring of 1998, the band won a Grammy, sold ten-million records, went on a sold-out world tour, released a companion box-set with a few dozen b-sides that went platinum and lost their drummer, Jimmy Chamberlain. Further, Corgan went through a divorce and lost his mother. The final single released from Mellon Collie was the plaintive acoustic ballad "Thirty-Three" which by the time the music video was completed, the Pumpkins were a three-piece. You watch the faces of Billy Corgan, guitarist James Iha and bassist D'arcy Wretzky and you don't see three triumphant friends with a sense of accomplishment, but three stars who misplaced their souls along the way. The clip shows more than exhaustion, but cracks. The band who bonded and formed to fight the world was splintered and the clip is as telling as the film Let It Be was for the Beatles. By the time Adore hit record shelves, Billy Corgan's existence was transformed and challenged. The quintessence of his being had been tried and shoved to its limits.

When I first heard Adore I knew this was a brave and bold record. I knew I couldn't dismiss it and as much as I wish there was screaming guitars, I couldn't help but be taken with his passionate narratives of loss and longing. Sixteen year later when I listen to Adore I hear more than an album I admire, but a masterpiece. Time has been good to the record and more writers should have championed it when it was originally released. From the song choices, to the arrangements, to the sequencing to the performances within, the minimalist yet invigorating music matches the shadowy subject matter. So what helped solidify my feelings? The broad and definitive box set encompassing six CDs, one DVD and a slew of pictures and liner notes. Over the last several years Billy Corgan has been withing with Universal Music on these reissues and in every case, he's making them definitive. He negotiated with Universal to ensure that every Pumpkins recorded received the same treatment and not just the ones that sold the most.

There are two ways of viewing reissues; on one hand many feel that when acts dig into their archives, it's a step backward. They believe their past should be just what they are, a distant memory. The second, which is how I lean, is that if they are done correctly and with great care they are the most significant weapon an artist can have in justifying, building and maintaining their legacy. Walk into any book store or peruse rock biographies on Amazon and bands like the Beatles and Rolling Stones have hundreds of books written about them. But how many other artists are as fortunate to have shelves dedicated to so many unofficial books? Would the legacies or the Beatles or Rolling Stones be as large as they are today if not for all the books written about them? Even now people are still trying to breathe new life into stories a half-century old. While the Beatles and Stones have legions willing to spread the gospel year-after-year, other bands will not be as fortunate simply because band don't have the same impact as they once did. There's nothing wrong with this but it adds a level of responsibility upon the artist to ensure their audience doesn't forget them and understands their art top-to-bottom. Billy Corgan gets this. He fully understands that twenty-years from now there will be fewer who will want to hear these outtakes than do right now in 2014. He grasps the changing musical climate and how if he wants to be remembered, discussed and debated, it is up to him to fuel the legend and what better way than to let their history of these albums creations unfold upon our ears?

There's brilliance in every one of these reissues. They may stand as the most definitive collection of music from any artist when Corgan is complete with the reissues in a few years. No stone has been left unturned and more importantly, Corgan is issuing these enhanced editions while his fan base is still alive and actively interested. I know there are those who are reading this may be rolling their eyes at my enthusiasm, but starting with the 2011 reissue of their debut Gish it sent me back to records I loved, records I failed to grasp the first time around and records I admired but now slowly became entranced by. More than anything, he's awoken my interest in the Smashing Pumpkins once again so much so that I think Oceania their latest full length album was their strongest since Adore.
If you don't fight for your legacy and your art, then who will? It is the job of the artist to remind people of albums that have passed us by, it's their job to show different sides of popular songs and it is their job to take us inside their minds when their greatest accomplishments were birthed. There are 107-bonus tracks housed within the deluxe edition box spread across seven discs with each one housing something special and unique the fan has never had before. More than that, if you listen to the genesis of these songs and what Corgan endured in bringing this album to life, it makes you appreciate it ten-fold. It's immediately apparent that this wasn't something he threw out into the marketplace without a second thought. Your body of work's legacy is dependent on your willingness to fight for it and Billy Corgan is Jake LaMotta; he will take a beating, let his opponents bloody him until flesh is no longer viewable, but he will never let them knock him down.

Disc One: Adore Stereo Remaster
Unlike many albums reissued these days that carry the "remaster" terminology, this album was been meticulously remastered by the legendary Bob Ludwig. The sound is enhanced without fighting for the loudness war championship. Doing an A-B comparison there is an inherent warmth in the new remaster and by no means has the volume been pumped. This is a tasteful handling of a master that was excellent to begin with. The remastering is warm without losing the essence of their original. While mastering techniques have improved since 1998, we are entering an age where remastering may not mean as much for recordings made after the mid-1990's but there is one song that stands out above all others, "Tear". On the 1998 master, the song has a distant sound and as Corgan recalls in the liner notes, he experimented with the sound when he brought Flood in to make sense of what he had recorded. Corgan found the mix he wanted using "tape saturation" by bouncing tapes against one another until they smear. The end result was perfect until they went to do the final mix a month later where they realized this process led to significant sound reduction. Corgan fixed the issue on the remaster and the results are revelatory and the defining mix of the song.

Disc Two: Adore Mono Remaster
It's peculiar to listen to a modern record top-to-bottom in mono. Corgan did these mixes in 1998 and hearing the sound come out of one speaker in a unified form. "The Tale of Dusty and Pistol Pete" is the stand-out mix, since this cut was given a different mono mix compared to the stereo version (and shorter by a few seconds). The stereo mix feels melancholy whereas on the mono mix many of these songs embrace the darkness of their themes more so than on the stereo mix.

Disc Three: Adore In a State of Passage (Demos)
Opening with an acoustic version of the luminous "Blissed and Gone" (from his Sandlands studio), which has now been revealed as the tease at the end ofAdore entitled "17". Later on the disc, a full band demo is every bit as endearing with a vital vocal by Corgan that is the perfect share of heartache and heart. The instrumental "The Guns of Love Disastrous" is a hypnotic while two mesmerizing takes of "For Martha" feature a full band work-up while the second is an instrumental take, but you feel the passion flowing over.

Disc Four: Adore Chalices, Palaces and Deep Pools (Demos and alt mixes)
The instrumental symphonic snippet of "For Martha" opens disc four and the guitar solo is something out of a dream to listen to. The multiple versions of this song is a testament to Corgan's brilliance as a musician, as he tweaked with bits and pieces so that it's more than a mere song but something he can channel all of his agony, confusion and pain. Artists thinking a mix of a song is missing something could learn from hearing these different takes, because no matter how complete it may sound, there's always a way to make it more grand and epic as Corgan did here. The banjo version of "To Sheila" feels eerily sonically relevant with it carefully layered in the mix throughout the song. There's a new mix of the track "Eye" which was originally given to David Lynch's film Lost Highway and pre-dates the release of Adore by a year.

Disc Five: Adore Malice, Callous and Fools
Opening disc five is "Let Me Give the World To You", an outtake produced by Rick Rubin. The song was revisited a few years later on their final album by the original group Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music and it's a melodic gem that's earnest and possibly would have provided a ray of light to the somber proceedings of Adore. It could have been a single it's so good and it's songs like these that justify archive projects. It was one of the last cuts recorded for the record and when they label heard it, they immediately wanted to make it the lead single, which was something Corgan felt would be a mistake and misleading to audience's who would potentially not be expecting themes and tones as dark as the final Adore album and Corgan's only way of changing their mind was by removing the song entirely. I can't say if he made a mistake or not as it would have been out of place on the album but it's also a shame that such a rip-roaring rocker drenched in Corgan's DNA has not seen the light of day before now.

A "drone" version of "Blissed and Gone" features the song in all it's glory, the pounding piano notes juxtapose with an aching vocal by Corgan. The instrumental demo of "Heaven" gives you a sense of what the Pumpkins would have sounded like if they ever let their inner Cure unleashed. This is one outtake I would have liked to see them re-imagine and complete. I'm also partial to the acoustic "Valentine" that is every bit as vulnerable as you would imagine. The second set of demos hail from CRC and are more fleshed out with drum machines and build the electronic template. There's a refreshing acoustic take on the single "Perfect", that allows the lyrics to come to life. The studio disc ends with "The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning" from the Batman and Robin soundtrack, like "Eye" that gives the full picture of this period in the band's history.

Disc Six: Adore Kissed Alive Too
Capturing the band live on tour in 1998, this disc doesn't contain a complete show from the tour, but rather highlights with the standout track being a cover of the Joy Division classic, "Transmission" which defies expectations in all of its droning 13-minutes.

Disc Seven: DVD of Fox Theater show from Atlanta, Georgia 8/4/98
Containing the entire 17-song set, you are able to witness the band at this moment in time and these images will be solidified forever. I've spoken about Billy Corgan continually in this piece, but it's here on video where James Iha and D'arcy Wretzky prove their worth. They were truly a "band" when they hit the stage regardless of what went on in the studio. These albums may have been birthed by Corgan out of supreme joy and persistent pain, but Iha and Wretzky did their fair share of rearing these songs to life, making them whole for the audience and for those fortunate enough to buy tickets to these shows, witness something more than could be discerned from a record.

Adore is a record that doesn't leave you when the needle runs off the vinyl. It lingers in the air, hides inside your consciousness and waits to be awoken. Widely misunderstood upon its release Adore has become a cult classic. These may be Corgan's demons and dreams that invade you, but you will soon learn these demons live within all of us. The dark electronic rhythms have stood the test of time and
There are records that submerge you and take you down. They don't comfort you so much as make you understand the agony you may endure.

Adore is a record that is a myriad of mazes that may not confound listeners initially, but if you dare listen to what Corgan is sharing, you will be encouraged enough to make the journey with him. When Corgan titled the album Adore no one realized it was a play on words for literally "A Door". Revealed in the liner notes here for the first time, it helps bring these tales of dissipation and mental torment into focus. Adore is not a record meant to keep the listener in the shadows, but to make them conscious enough to look for the silver linings and beams of light. Sharing this light with others is what will define our existence. For my money, Adore is one of the great records of the 1990s, not just because of what Billy Corgan went through, but how he compiled this suffering into a collection of songs that we are still unraveling sixteen years later. If the album was all we ever had to define this period of Corgan's life it would be enough, but with the new deluxe edition, it takes us deeper, opens our eyes wider and ultimately makes our heart beat faster. The Smashing Pumpkins reissue of Adore is more than a look inside a heart filled with longing and loss, but a template that anyone who calls themselves an artist should follow; this is one of the most educational, enlightening and important deluxe editions ever to be released.

You can order the reissue here.