Pumpkins' Corgan Disappointed by Adore sales
Bandleader reportedly hints that the group might change its plans for 1998 and continue pushing album.

Senior Writer Gil Kaufman reports:

Lamenting that "not every team wins the pennant every year," Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan reportedly said he was disappointed by fan and critical reaction to his group's new album, Adore.

"It kicked us in the head," Corgan was quoted as saying in Thursday's New York Times, in reference to the album's slower-than-expected sales. The record has sold 499,000 copies since its June 2 release, 1,000 sales short of the gold record mark. In contrast, their last album, 1995's Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, a double CD, has sold 4 million copies since its release.

"I thought we had a grace period here," Corgan is quoted as saying. "I thought we could coast a little, and I think we've been reminded that there will be no coasting here."

Close to wrapping up a 13-city tour, in which the band is donating the proceeds from each show to local charities, Corgan is said to have used the stage at a July 1 show to refer to the darkly electronic Adore as the Pumpkins' "most misunderstood" album since their 1991 debut, Gish.

The bald lead singer hinted that the group, which includes bassist D'Arcy and guitarist James Iha, might scrap its original plans for 1998, which included the short charity tour and then a dash back to the studio to record the band's next album, whih Corgan says he has already written. But what his plans might be was left unclear.

"I can't try to make another album with everyone thinking I got buried on the last one," Corgan reportedly said. "So I'm going to prove everybody wrong before I go on. Or at least feel I proved them wrong."

Pumpkins publicist Gayle Fine said Friday that she could neither confirm nor deny whether Corgan's comments suggested that the band might break with its plan to minimally tour the intensely personal Adore album and then immediately return to the studio.

"In all candor, I've been really surprised how quick the world turns on you," Corgan was quoted as saying. "It's staggering."

The bandleader refused to get into specifics, but he reportedly said he felt that once things stopped going the band's way, "the wind blows cold real fast. I'm not just talking about the media. I'm talking about the inner workings of my world."

Labeling Corgan's comments as much ado about nothing, Tower Records Senior Vice President Stan Goman said Adore is doing "just fine" at his store's 99 U.S. outlets.

"What's he whining about?" Goman said of the record, which was #13 on the Tower charts this week, down from #11 last week and a first-week high of #1. "If there's a problem, it's that Mellon Collie was out in 1995 and everyone that was 16 then is 19 now, everyone that was 22 is 25, and what [Corgan doesn't] understand is that you wait three years to release an album and you lose your audience."

To date, Adore has failed to spawn a signature single on par with "1979" or "Bullet With Butterfly Wings," two of the staple alternative-radio hits from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.

Source: Sonicnet