Smashing Pumpkins: 11 Essential Tracks All Fans Should Listen To

11. For Martha

The tonal shift and transition from Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness to Ava Adore is, to say the least, incredibly jarring. Departing from the band's sludge metal progressive rock-oriented songs, the band switched to focus on more introspective songs playing within genres like industrial, goth rock, and electronic.

On first listen, it's almost another band entirely, but Ava Adore undeniably holds a spiritual likeness to their previous work.

The gothic romanticism in Martha is everything that made Smashing Pumpkins a great band. It's a heart-wrenching song full of vulnerability and humble in its delivery. Corgan's singing is a change of pace compared to other songs with his gentle whispering falsetto. Right when the song's emotional catharsis reaches its noise guitar solo, he subdues his flurry of emotions with nuance, abandoning an adolescent emotional outburst to mature articulation.

It's a stark departure from belting out heartbreak and pain, trading it for a much more tender approach as he mourns the loss of love. In doing so it makes the theme of lost love more impactful as it gently sways from his grasp, no longer his to hold but appreciate.

Ava Adore was different but had the same essence that made the band unique: always experimenting and pushing itself. Martha stands alongside their best body of work as a remarkably tragic song.