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Music

Listen to Liam Kenny Cover The Misunderstood Smashing Pumpkins Album ‘Adore’

You can thank us/shank us later.

When the Smashing Pumpkins released Adore, their fourth studio album, in 1998, reaction was mixed. After the multi-platinum success of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, and the band's subsequent yearlong world tour, a lot was riding on the follow up. But when it was released in June, the 73-minute album alienated many fans. There was confusion surrounding the length and that vocalist and songwriter Billy Corgan seemingly was giving up guitar to focus on piano and synth.​

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The first line of the first single was, "It's you that I adore/ You'll always be my whore."

At the time there were more than a few jokes floating about that the only person Corgan adored was himself.  When the album was lavishly reissued in 2014 many asked, "Why?"

But Sydney songwriter Liam Kenny is a fan of Adore and in 2015 recorded a collection of songs from the album. Yesterday he released the album on Bandcamp.

Kenny, who is probably best known for his involvement in Bitch Prefect​ and Peak Twins, has an interesting perspective when it comes to music. He has written songs about Australia's Immigration Minister​ and released an album of mutated covers that included Leonard Cohen's "Avalanche"​and Billy Idol's "Eyes Without a Face"​.

Listen to the album below, especially the beautiful "Tale of Dusty", that was titled "The Tale of Dusty and Pistol Pete" on Adore. Kenny strips the lush instrumentation and arrangement of the original but with just guitar, pedals, delay and distorted vocals retains all of Corgan's  fragility of the original.

​'Adore' is available from Liam Kenny's Bandcamp page​.