Robbed hit of the week 5/17/21 - the Smashing Pumpkins' "Ava Adore"...

 

 

"Ava Adore" - The Smashing Pumpkins

from the album Adore (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #42 (two weeks)

 

This week's "robbed hit" comes from the alternative rock group Smashing Pumpkins, whose seminal double-disc album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness had sold millions and spun off four top-40 pop hits in America with "Bullet With Butterfly Wings", "1979", "Tonight, Tonight", and "Thirty-Three".  In 1998, after winning a Grammy with their Batman & Robin soundtrack contribution "The End Is The Beginning Is The End", the band returned with their fourth studio album Adore. With original drummer Jimmy Chamberlain kicked out for a publicized involvement in the drug overdose death of a touring bandmate, lead singer Billy Corgan, guitarist James Iha, bass player D'Arcy Wretsky, and temporary replacement Matt Walker, the new set ventured far from their harder rock roots into colder, electronic sounds. The lead single from the record was the semi-title cut "Ava Adore", written by Corgan and produced by Brad Wood. Taking a cue already paved by the likes of U2 and Pearl Jam, the track flirts with dance music ever so slightly, while the lyrics go total goth in its romantic teasing with dark tones like death and obsession...

 

 While "Ava Adore" was a decent hit on rock radio in America, reaching the top ten on both the Alternative (two weeks at #3) and Mainstream (#8) radio charts in Billboard magazine, the song stopping a couple notches short of the pop top-40 (even with a single release) in July of 1998. Internationally, the single topped the chart in Iceland, and made the top-40 in Greece (#2), New Zealand (#5), Hungary (#10), the UK (#11), Norway (#11), Ireland (#15), Canada (#16), Australia (#19), and Sweden (#19). The Adore album, released in June of that year, peaked at #2 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to move over a million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 1999, Adore was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album, which the Beastie Boys took home for Hello Nasty. 

A second single from Adore, "Perfect", was meant to be a sequel to "1979", and had its dreamy quality, which helped it place on Billboard's Adult Top-40 radio chart at #31, while stopping at #54 on their Hot 100 pop chart. It also spent a month at #3 on the Alternative Rock chart, and #33 on the Mainstream Rock format. Internationally, the single hit the top-40 in Canada (#11), Iceland (#17), New Zealand (#18), and the UK (#24).

Since I covered the Pumpkins' final SOTD in August of 2020, the reunited Corgan, Iha, a rehabilitated Chamberlain, and new member Jeff Schroeder released another album, Cyr, at the close of the year. The title track, promoted as the first single, went to #19 on Billboard's Alternative Rock radio chart. 

(7/10)

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Here's the band performing "Ava Adore" on tour in 1998...