Mellon Collie Without the Infinite Boredom
What would happen if you cut down on the size of Mellon Collie? How great of an album could you create if it had been just one disc instead of two?
Andrew and I did a thing. We painstakingly pored over one of the most iconic albums of our lifetime - The Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness - and created what we think is an even better version of the album. We followed a set of rules and tried to stick by a code. Some of the things we cut, we still love as much as we love some of the numerous tracks in the b-side catalog of one of the most prolific periods of the Pumpkins’ career. In the end, we made trades. We suffered over the order. I think we arrived at the version of the album that I’ll listen to for the rest of my life (or as long as the Spotify playlist still exists.)
This whole project is one of love and appreciation. I know the title of this post and playlist could be viewed as mean or hateful, but it’s tongue in cheek. I love the Smashing Pumpkins and have since I was a kid. So, anyone who's reading this, we’re not trashing the Pumpkins or this record. It’s a fan cut made because we’re gigantic fans, arguably with too much time on our hands.
So does Andrew and maybe even more so. I couldn’t have done this by myself very easily. First of all, it was Andrew’s idea. Andrew did most of the heavy lifting. He did the entire first draft. I came in and poked and prodded and helped us arrive at the final tracklist and order, but I’m standing on the back of a giant who is more thoughtful and capable than I am of a project like this. Anyway, love love love for the Pumpkins. Next!
The Rules:
The new “album” had to fit on an 80-minute CD as if we were back in 1990s with those technical limitations.
Andrew has been listening to the vinyl edition of Mellon Collie and the track order is different. That track order was a guiding light. The even more bloated track list of that record is shown below.
Not a rule per se, but Andrew and I paid special attention to conceptually having a perfect “end to side 1” as if this were also capable of being on a cassette tape.
Without further ado, here is the tracklist.
Side 1:
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Tonight, Tonight
Thirty-Three
Jellybelly
Bodies
To Forgive
Here is No Why
Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
Side 2:
Stumbleine
Where Boys Fear to Tread
Tales of a Scorched Earth
Bullet with Butterfly Wings
Zero
An Ode to No One
Muzzle
1979
Thru the Eyes of Ruby
Here’s a link to the playlist.
Now for some discussion.
Stumbleine Hidden Track?
So, let’s talk about “Stumbleine.” The original draft of this project had this song added via the hidden track trick. That song doesn’t totally fit in with the record. It doesn’t have a good spot in the entire playlist. It doesn’t really sound like anything else we kept. This was the conversation on Discord.
Craig: If it were my disc, I’d go old school and do 5 minutes of silence at the end of “Thru the Eyes of Ruby” and have it “hidden” at the end of the record.
Andrew: OOOOHHHHH
Craig: Yeah. I’m that guy.
Andrew: It would legit be AWESOME there
Craig: Right? You are basking in the glow of the record and just all of a sudden it comes on as a bonus?
Ultimately after a good night’s sleep, Andrew figured out that by thinking of it as side 1 and side 2, “Stumbleine” works at the beginning of side 2. Still, as an old man who grew up with that hidden track life on Stone Temple Pilots’ Purple and Tool’s Undertow, it was really tempting to do it that way.
X.Y.U. vs. Tales of a Scorched Earth
The toughest cuts were really hard. In the first draft, Andrew included “X.Y.U.” which is a raucous, heavy song. It’s not my favorite. Sometimes when Billy Corgan and the crew go long, it’s in service of something. Sometimes I feel like it’s just an ego trip. That said, Andrew kind of knew that I might fight some of the screechier, heavy songs, but “Tales of a Scorched Earth” was also cut in Andrew’s first draft. That was a tough cut for both of us, so it made sense to swap them. We kept “Scorched Earth” and dropped “X.Y.U.” “Scorched Earth” is also under four minutes, so we saved time to make other changes.
When it came time to slot “Scorched Earth” into the list, Andrew nailed it. The end of “Where Boys Fear to Tread” is a perfect lead-in for “Scorched Earth.” Maybe even more perfectly, the way it ends and then out of nowhere Billy sings, “The world is a vampire…” is perfect.
Really Tough Cuts
There were some songs that we love but that we cut because we wanted to make the hard choices that the Pumpkins conceivably couldn’t back in the day. Also, as gigantic Pumpkins fans, we’re not afraid of having awesome b-sides on the singles. Especially in those days, I was a completist type of collector. I had the Pumpkins box set The Aeroplane Flies High, etc. and so did Andrew. “Cutting” a song doesn’t mean that much to us for that reason.
“Love” is a good song. It isn’t the most exciting chorus of the band’s career, but it’s a solid song.
I personally love “Galapogos.” It’s not one I would ever skip. It’s one of the dreamier pop songs on the record even if it is a bit slower. It’s a nice song.
Similar to “Galapogos,” “In the Arms of Sleep” is a solid tune. With those two as anchors, you’ve already got the makings of an excellent EP and those two songs do fit together pretty well. Maybe Andrew and I will build the EP of leftovers for them sometime. Beautiful would fit in, but I wouldn’t call this as difficult a cut as the previous two.
Easy Cuts
Sorry, not sorry. “Take Me Down” was easy to remove. “Cupid De Locke” was also dead simple to lose. “Beautiful” was easy, but not as easy as the other two. “Lily” was easy to remove for us both. One song stands out as the easiest to cut out of all the songs we cut on the album…
It is similar to “Lily,” but it’s more annoying… Sorry, Billy.
“We Only Come Out At Night” has been an automatic skip for me for my entire life listening to this album.
The Perfect Ending
In the end, it was easy to cut “Farewell and Goodnight” too, simply because Andrew and I are both from the school of ending albums with perfect songs. We both quickly agreed that the perfect album closer for the better, more efficient Mellon Collie was “Thru the Eyes of Ruby.” The guitar leads are epic and anthemic. According to the fan sites, the Pumpkins might have used as many as 70 guitar tracks to help create that huge sound on the record. It’s some of the best singing on the record for my money.
The ending refrain has the band rocking out as Billy Corgan sings over and over,
“The night has come to hold us young!”
The song fades into an acoustic alternate version that recalls the opener “Mellon Collie” ever so briefly.
And we’re out.
Hi eveybody from France!
Inspired by your article, here's my tracklist to reduce MCIS into a single album, fitting on an 80-minute CD or a 90-minute cassette.
I made two tracklists :
The first contains only the tracks from the official album.
But since the goal is also to create my ideal album in the format of a single album, while respecting the time constraint, I created my ideal with B-sides that are essential to me, as well as a few studio outtakes! And yes this is the second tracklist!
First of all, I should mention that I discovered MCIS exactly 30 years ago, during the Easter holidays of 1996 (I was listening to Radiohead, Oasis, Babylon Zoo, and Hole at the time). A friend and I went to the library, and he borrowed this album, which I didn't know. I was surprised to see how it was categorized, as the classification indicated that it was a mix of techno rock and heavy metal. My first question was: what was this oddity?
Back at my friend's place, we split the disc: my friend wanted to keep the pink disc because it had "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" on it (which I didn't know at all, but which my friend guaranteed was incredibly intense and amazing). And I went home with the blue disc. What a life-changing discovery that was: the hypnotic riff of "Where Boys Fear to Tread," followed by the raw power of "Bodies"... HUGE! I'd never heard a song so visceral. Goodbye Nirvana and Kurt Cobain; there was something even more tortured and sincere.
Then, when I got to "1979," I realized it was the song I'd been hearing on the radio for weeks, a song I thought was incredibly original, but whose title and band I didn't know! What a joy! And another mystery: who was the singer, really? I thought there were two of them: the Asian guy with the nasal vocals and the one in the ZERO T-shirt for everything else! It wasn't until the next day that my boyfriend explained who the singer was and played me the pink CD in his room so I could discover "Bullet with Butterfly Wings." He kept that CD for a few more days while I explored "Twilight to Starlight" and its moments of grace, violence, and originality ("We Only Come Out at Night" really struck me with its burlesque feel). That's why I've always had a soft spot for the blue CD, as it was my first introduction to the band!
This explains the rules I set for myself:
A/ My tracklist had to reflect MCIS as I loved it during my teenage years, not my more mature tastes today (even though my preferences have remained almost the same), and thus have that "smells like teen spirit" feel.
B/ My tracklist had to fit on a 90-minute cassette (I recorded so many back then), or an 80-minute CD.
C/ The baroque spirit of the album had to come through (as evoked by the booklet illustrations, and especially the lyric illustrations relating to the Lenormand divination deck—which my mother played and which allowed me to immediately embrace the booklet's concept, since I knew the origin of all the drawings illustrating the lyrics).
D/ Play on contrasts between gentle and harsh (like honey versus spurts of vitriol), and maintain this balance, so as not to deliver a condensed MCIS that's either too electric or too acoustic/pop.
E/ Some songs have their parallel between day and night (Galapogos / In the Arms of Sleep)
F/ Leave room for experimentation, but distribute it more evenly (it's true that the last 5 songs on the album are quite experimental and, this is one of my few criticisms of the album, leave a feeling of filler at the end and should have been better placed elsewhere on the album).
1/ EASY CUTS (I'm going to upset some people!)
Jellybelly :
It's not that I don't like it, but it's always left me cold: I find it rather messy and the production too closed off.
Muzzle :
And yes, everyone loves this one, well, not me, ha!
It's to MCIS what "Rocket" was to Siamese Dream: a filler track, unoriginal, and Billy's voice has always annoyed me.
Take Me Down :
Nice to close the first chapter, but irrelevant since it's not a Billy song.
Thirty-Three :
What?! I'm getting rid of one of the singles?! Yes, good song, I like it, but it's not essential to the MCIS "sound."
Stumbleine :
It's a demo, and there are other songs that are just as delicate and touching.
X.Y.U. :
The only exception in my list of easy cuts, because I listened to it a lot as a teenager, to the point of knowing every breath and sigh of Corgan amidst his screams.
But equally, I listened to "Tales of a Scorched Earth" (and my boyfriend and I would blast it on his parents' stereo because the sound was monstrous), and the latter seems less capricious to me than X.Y.U., and its violence is better controlled and impactful, whereas it gets a little lost on X.Y.U. And there's also the time constraint!
Lily :
Nice, nothing more.
2/ DIFFICULT CUTS
An Ode to No One :
What rage, what a sound! Still as infernal as ever! But it doesn't have that baroque feel as much as other equally furious tracks. A shame.
Porcelina of the Vast Oceans :
I've always preferred its nighttime counterpart, "Thru the Eyes of Ruby." But these plays on light and dark atmospheres really work well. And there's the time constraint. And having already kept two songs, each with its counterpart of the night and the day ("in the arms of sleep" / "Galapogos")...
Beautiful :
A beautiful experimental pop song where you can hear D'Arcy... But I struggled so much to include it that I finally gave up. Besides, there are other equally experimental songs on my tracklist ;-)
Farewell and Goodnight :
Since I had a preconceived idea for how to end the album, "Farewell" became redundant!
3/ MY CHOICES AND THE SEQUENCES I INTENDED
Infinite Sadness / Methusela :
And yes, what audacity to start the album with two outtakes! A deliberate choice, considering these two tracks were recorded at the very beginning of the MCIS sessions and that "Infinite Sadness" dates back to the Siamese Dream era! In my opinion, they reflect Corgan's state of mind at the start of the sessions ;-)
"Infinite Sadness" also has a pompous quality, like "Tonight, Tonight," and "Methuselah," with its dreamy melancholy, provides a counterpoint to the gentleness of the "MCIS" intro followed by the grandeur of "Tonight, Tonight."
And "Methusela" evokes morning so much for me!
Zero / Love :
Two "cyber metal" tracks, in different octaves but equally venomous (like the thorny rose in the liner notes). Both equally experimental.
Bodies :
Positioning it was quite difficult, but I was determined. Initially, I envisioned it right after "Tales of a Scorched Earth." But I felt there were too many tracks from "Dawn to Dusk" in a row at the beginning of my tracklist, so I wanted to balance it with songs from "Twilight to Starlight." And then, the revelation: the outro of "Love" and the intro of "Bodies" work wonderfully, and "Bodies" is propelled as much by "Love" as by "Tales" or "Where Boys Fear to Tread."
And in the end, "1979" follows "Tales" just as well (as it already does on the original vinyl tracklist).
Funny detail: changing the title from "Love" to "love is suicide" in the lyrics made sense!
In the Arms of Sleep / Cupid de Locke : One is written in verse, the other in Old English from the Baroque era. What could be more Baroque? And the dreamy, melancholic joy that emanates from their delicate arpeggios? Two celestial songs.
Rotten Apples :
Its mellotron (which can be heard in so many Pumpkins songs—and which created their signature sound in ballads—especially "Spaceboy") is simply magnificent and, for me, evokes a purely baroque moment. This song alone is a pure contrast: the purity and gentleness of the mellotron against a raging vocal performance, , it perfectly encapsulates the album's contrasts. This demo is clearly superior to "Stumbleine"...
Bullet with Butterfly Wings / We Only Come Out at Night :
A big thumbs-down to those (and there are many) who don't like "We Only Come Out at Night," but I've always loved that one!And I've always thought that the mini slide at the end of "Bullet" would be perfectly followed by the burlesque intro of "We Only Come Out at Night"! A way to create a new contrast between a heavy song and a light song (even if the lyrics aren't light!). Completely gratuitous parallel: both songs share the bat as an illustration for their lyrics ;-)
Set the Ray to Jerry :
Another celestial song—and there are so many stars depicted in the artwork and on the album, aren't there? ;-) Every time I listen to it, I feel like I'm in a starry sky alongside the planets and our friend on the cover. If I had to represent the album cover with a song, it would be this one.
Evoking the night, I found its suspended ending an interesting way to introduce "Tonight, Tonight." Which goes to show that "Tonight, Tonight" can be introduced by something other than "MCIS"!
And placing it right after "Where Boys Fear to Tread" created a contrast: two suspended songs—one abyssal and electric, the other celestial and semi-acoustic—allowing the red carpet to be rolled out for the grand finale, "Tonight, Tonight," and its Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra, making it a truly magnificent ending!
And if you pay attention to the titles that follow one another, we have 3 songs that make up a phrase: We only come out at night, where boys fear to tread tonight;-)
"Medellia of the Gray Skies" / "By Starlight" : Hidden songs
My guilty pleasure: hidden tracks. "By Starlight" and its fade-in are perfect for creating a final surprise.
And on my version with B-sides and outtakes, "Medellia of the Gray Skies" is also a splendid hidden track before "By Starlight." And it was perfectly acceptable to include it, even though Medellia was actually recorded two months after the album's release ;-)
MY MELLON COLLIE WITHOUT THE INFINITE BOREDOM
Side A
1. Mellon collie and the infinite sadness
2. Zero
3. Love
4. Bodies
5. In the arms of sleep
6. Cupid de Locke
7. Here is no why
8. Galapogos
Side B
9. Tales of a scorched earth
10. 1979
11. To forgive
12. Thru the eyes of Ruby
13. Bullet with butterfly wings
14. We only come out at night
15. Where boys fear to tread
16. Tonight,tonight
Hidden song: By starlight
MY MELLON COLLIE WITHOUT THE INFINITE BOREDOM - but with B-sides and outtakes!
Side A
1. Infinite sadness
2. Methusela
3. Zero
4. Love
5. Bodies
6. In the arms of sleep
7. Cupid de Locke
8. Rotten apples
9. Here is no why
10.Galapogos
Side B
11. Tales of a scorched earth
12. 1979
13. To forgive
14. Thru the eyes of Ruby
15. Bullet with butterfly wings
16. We only come out at night
17. Where boys fear to tread
18. Set the Ray to Jerry
19. Tonight,tonight
Hidden songs:
Medellia of the gray skies
By starlight