As I’m sure everyone noticed, last month marked the, erm, eleven-year anniversary of the release of the Smashing Pumpkins’ super-inflated zeppelin of a record, titled in all seriousness Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness (1995). I was a senior in high school at the time, and though I was at the cusp of my music snobbery, I considered myself a devoted fan and dutifully submerged myself in its songs for over a month. I was both fascinated and frustrated by it. Few records have had me reaching for the “skip” button on my boombox like Mellon Collie, and I eventually dubbed a shorter version onto a 60-minute cassette for my car. Unsurprisingly, both discs are predominantly front-loaded, with the weaker tracks generally falling near the end of each disc. As a tribute to the band’s most controversial release, which signaled the birth of a two-disc release trend that saturated the pop market for the rest of the decade, I offer a sleeker, fitter, and more compact Mellon Collie that will further enhance its listening value, preserve its longevity and importance, and better solidify its place in the canon of pop music.

Firstly, it must be determined which tracks are not viable or functional in Mellon Collie v2.0. These tracks are generally the result of poor decision-making, lack of good taste, drugs, a starving ego, or are simply deliberate attempts at filler. The only rule: for the sake of history, any domestic singles culled from the record cannot be discarded. As much as I would love to erase “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” from my own memory and that of the popular conscious, rules must be obeyed.

Though it’s common knowledge that Billy Corgan was a poetic catastrophe when it came to writing a decent lyric, it was always amusing to peruse the liners and find which one caused the most shuddering. Each track includes an excerpt of what we’re dealing with here, not just for those who can’t seem to recall the melody, but for others who find Corgan’s musings just as dreadful as I do.

Let’s get started, shall we?

The outtakes from the first disc (ahem, “Dawn to Dusk”) are as follows:

“Fuck You (An Ode to No One)”
A cursory flip through the 30-page lyric book reveals that – gasp! – the title on the disc case is merely the parenthetical of the real song title, and it’s dirty! Oooh, you’re a naughty one, Billy! How many gangly, pimply-faced ninth graders covertly replaced the “No One” in the title with “You, Dad”? The first clear indication that the listener might be dealing with more than a modicum of filler, this one’s an easy throwaway, despite some tasteful kit work from Jimmy Chamberlin (note his deft pattern starting at 1:40). Built around a mindless, one-note chugga-chugga’d guitar riff copped from the first day of Stoner Rock 101 class, Corgan indulges in tedious power chording, stop-start riffing, and the obligatory mid-song breakdown (complete with the decrease in tempo), all filtered through the glow of lava lamps and a haze of pot smoke. Worst lyric: “To runaround kids in get-go cars/with Vaseline afterbirths and neon lights.”

“Love”
This one makes a strong case for the worldwide prohibition of the gaudiest of all studio effects, the flanger. There isn’t a single instrument in the mix, Corgan’s voice included, that isn’t processed into a drunken stupor with heapfuls of sterile digital distortion. A sloppily executed and painfully trebly guitar solo only helps drive this one into the ground. Listen closely during the verses for a ridiculous cross-panned sample of what sounds like vomit splashing onto hot concrete. U2 sifted through this kind of garbage on Zooropa (1993) and Pop (1997) to little avail; “Love” is a miserable studio-crafted experiment that should have never seen the light of day, and by the end of the track you’re wheezing for a breath of fresh air. Worst lyric: “She shimmy shakes/the jimmy jakes of consequence.”

“Cupid de Locke”
The pomposity of the title says it all. I have friends who admit this one as a guilty pleasure, but the dripping harp arpeggios and shimmering maj7 chords marinate the entire production in headache-inducing saccharine. I still get nauseous when Corgan’s middle-school spoken-word nonsense spews all over the coda. Still, given its length, it’s one of the lesser offenses of the throwaway bunch. Worst lyric: “And in the land of star-crossed lovers/and barren-hearted wanderers/forever lost in forsaken missives and Satan’s pull.”

“Muzzle”
A typical Pumpkins-by-numbers creation, with Corgan sounding strangely paternal in the lyric sheet, seemingly resigned to the outcome of life. There are no nifty production tricks to listen for, and Chamberlin is buried in the mix under a stratum of guitars that have the subtlety of a steamroller. Bland, homogenized, and a perfect candidate for a B-side if there ever was one. Worst lyric: the opening “I feel that I am ordinary, just like everyone/to lie here and die among the sorrows/adrift among the days.”

“Porcelina of the Vast Oceans”
This one’s not entirely abominable, but it’s too damn long for its own good. A nautical two-minute intro with cymbal rolls and gentle washes of guitar is violently slammed into by a desert-biker riff, which then gives way to a frustratingly unbalanced mix of bit-crushed synth tones and hand drumming. From there, the song seems more complex than it actually is, alternating between variations on the aforementioned stoner riff and Corgan’s meditations on a mermaid named Porcelina or something equally absurd. A moronic title reeking of prog excess, an excruciatingly long fade-in, and banal space effects during the outro send this one into the discarded pile. Worst lyric: “The dilly dally of my bright lit stay/the steam of my misfortunes/has given me the power to be afraid.” Huh?

“Take Me Down”
I’ve always wondered how James Iha managed to bypass Corgan’s Quality Control Department with this fragile skeleton of a tune, or maybe he forfeited his album advance back to Virgin for its inclusion here, albeit at the end of the first disc. Admittedly, the production has a lovely Mitchell Froom-like spaciousness to it, but when Iha approaches the bridge with that thin pubescent voice of his, all bets are off. Save this one for your first solo record, James, the one that’s now littering the used bins of record stores across the country. Picking through the triteness of the lyrics for the most cringe-worthy one is tough (and since Corgan is missing from the proceedings, it doesn’t really count), but let’s settle for “Why oh why, there is no light/and if I can’t sleep, can you hold my life/and all I see is you.”

The outtakes from the second disc are:

“Tales of a Scorched Earth”
Unarguably the worst four minutes on the entire record, this song is an atrocity in every sense of the word. “Scorched Earth” is a bloody train wreck of masturbatory fretwork, buzzing feedback, and sludgy bass; it’s nearly impossible to tell what the hell is going on during the bridge. Corgan’s vocals here have the uncanny ability of triggering the gag reflex without even the slightest understanding of what the lyrics are. The recipe: take any Ministry song circa ‘92, puree it in a blender, drizzle with molasses, pour over white-hot charcoal and serve with a side of factory-made, assembly-line angst. Worst lyric: “I lie just to be real, and I’d die just to feel/why do the same old things keep on happening?”

“X.Y.U.”
Almost as horrible as “Tales of a Scorched Earth,” this song could more or less pass as Tool, minus the arty pretentions or minimalistic instrumentation. Nearly the entire tune is derived from the monumentally thickheaded guitar riff at the beginning, and the whole mess continues—I can’t emphasize this enough—for seven fucking minutes. At 4:18 everything drops out to spotlight Corgan’s most ferocious temper-tantrum to date, a moment that should be hilarious but comes of as just plain embarrassing, like witnessing a grown man at the receiving end of a wicked spanking in the mall parking lot. Worst lyric: “Rat-tat-tat, ka boom boom, now take that, and just a bit of this/’cause I’m a watcher, and I’m a doer of none/come to save you, ‘cause you’re all mine.” Scary!

“We Only Come Out at Night”
This one’s a curiosity; it’s not necessarily disposable in the awful sense as much as it is utterly lifeless. The rhythmic foundation is a percolating horse trot that gets tired rather quickly, and the same could be said for the stale autoharp and saloon-style piano that decorate the track. The entire thing sounds like it was constructed with Corgan alone in the studio one morning nursing a hangover. Filler, for sure. Worst lyric: “There’s an end to this begin/it will help you sleep at night/it will make it seem that right is always right/alright?”

“Beautiful”
Most of this track revolves around a hackneyed, white-as-they-come hip hop beat, and Corgan’s vocals sound as if he recorded them while half-asleep on the couch. “Beautiful” is another studio concoction, not particularly offensive, but not engaging in the least; an insipid experiment that’s forgotten as soon as it’s over. Worst lyric: “And I’m sure you know me well, as I’m sure you don’t/but you just can’t tell, who you’ll love and who you won’t.”

“Lily (My One and Only)”
“Lily” is unique in that it sounds like it’s blaring out of an AM radio at the edge of the desert, but that doesn’t save this derivative, countrified slop. The instant familiarity of the tune is attributed to the fact that it shares the same slow, galloping shuffle as “We Only Come Out at Night.” This one has its defenders as well, but compare it to anything off Gish (1991), then tell me “Lily” was a good direction for the band to move in. Worst lyric: “Will she or won’t she want him/no one knows for sure/but an officer is knocking at my door.”

“By Starlight”
Remember Nazareth? If Corgan wanted to compose a “Love Hurts” for the ‘90s, “By Starlight” qualifies as its successor, soundtracking a thousand high school gymnasiums full of kids in ill-fitted tuxedos and swirling colored lights, as overlooking chaperones make sure the boys’ hands stay above the waist. Chamberlin sounds miserable, lazily playing to a lethargic click track, praying for the end of the song to arrive. The overblown psychedelic climax has Corgan begging in narcissistic glory, whining the question, “Are you just like me?” Pure, synthetic cheese in a can. Worst lyric: “I’ll make you feel happy/and leave you to be lost in mine/and where will we go, what will we do?/Soon said I, will know.”

“Farewell and Goodnight”
It’s time to point fingers here: whose idea was it to have all four band members contribute vocals to this corny mess of a number? “Farewell and Goodnight” leaves an impression of the band sitting around a campfire, rocking from side to side in unison, lulling the little campers to sleep with this hokey lullaby. Don’t bother thumbing through the liners for the culprit; it’s glaringly obvious that Iha had a hand in this one. A shame that the Pumpkins ended Mellon Collie on this dull exercise in tedium, leaving a sour taste in the listener’s mouth long after the record has been filed away. Worst lyric: “May it…keep you from the loneliness of yourself/heart strung is your heart frayed and empty/’cause it’s hard luck, when no one understands your love.”

The excess fat is now removed; for those persons taking shameful delight in any of the above, let’s assume that they’ll all appear on The Aeroplane Flies High (1996) box set, released a year later. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I present the new and improved Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness (for vinylphyles, I’ve specified the sides as well):

(LP One, Side One)
1. “Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness”
An utter bore and a chore to sit through (especially when placed at the beginning of the record), but for reasons revealed later, I’m supporting its inclusion. This instrumental title track also provides a fleeting moment of sweet, blue-skied clarity before Corgan’s lyrical hurricane ravages the mainland.

2. “Jellybelly”
The last note of piano decays into silence, and an unexpected blast of distortion rips through the speakers like a wild, rabid beast; this is the Pumpkins in full-on assault mode, and after an hour filtering the detritus above, it sounds wonderful. Three succinct minutes of fuzzed-out bass, Chamberlin’s hyperactive tom rolls, glorious Secret Weapon guitars, and a bridge that makes perfect sense, all leading to the abrupt conclusion of the song collapsing under the weight of its own ROCK. Worst lyric: “Living makes me sick/so sick I wish I’d die/down in the belly of the best/I can’t lie.”

3. “Zero”
The original Mellon Collie got the sequencing right in its placement of this boneheaded slab of rock after “Jellybelly.” With an inventive use of those natural guitar harmonics and a tempo custom-designed for safe headbanging, “Zero” has the distinction of possessing the worst lyrics of the album, and possibly Corgan’s career: about halfway through, the music drops out to emphasize the worst jaw-dropping drivel ever discharged out of his mouth. There is a decent pitch-shifted guitar solo, and if you extracted an image spectrum from the song, I’m sure it would appear as a hand making devil horns. Worst lyric: everything from “Emptiness…” to “God is empty, just like me.” Uugh.

4. “Here Is No Why”
It’s criminal that this wasn’t released as a single; it’s easily the best song on the record, and one of the best of the Pumpkins’ career, proving that Corgan could reveal flashes of brilliance when he wanted to. “Here Is No Why” is instantly likeable upon first listen, and contains all of the best musical elements of the band: a complex song structure, an anthemic dual-guitar solo, a dreamy Ebow’d interlude in the middle, trademark octave slides in the chorus, and one of the best uses of Secret Weapon guitar in rock history. Quintessential mid-’90s rock at its finest with a glam twist; turn this one up to 130 decibels and simply enjoy. Why couldn’t the rest of Mellon Collie follow in this vein? Worst lyric: “A secret star that cannot shine over to you/may the king of gloom, be forever doomed.”

“Here Is No Why” – Smashing Pumpkins 3:45 (Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, Virgin 1995)

(LP One, Side Two)
5. “1979”
This single turned off quite a few fans who weren’t fazed by the “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” debacle, but what many failed to realize was that buried beneath the glitzy new wave production of “1979” lurks a respectable pop song. Corgan never captured the excitement and confusion of teenage youth better than here, and while sparks certainly aren’t flying from the speakers, it’s a pleasant break from the arena-rock of the last few selections. The unidentifiable organ-like bed of sound that dances underneath the chorus is just lovely. Worst lyric: “No apologies ever need to be made, I know you better than you fake it/to see that we don’t care to shake these zipper blues.”

6. “To Forgive”
Naturally, our hero can’t resist asking us to feel sorry for him, and “To Forgive” is Corgan politely offering a slice of self-pity. This song’s a downer, for sure, but the arrangements are done tastefully, and there’s nothing else on Mellon Collie that sounds like it; I’m including it for variety. Worst lyric: the pathetic “And I remember my birthdays/empty party afternoons won’t come back.”

7. “Galapogos”
A delicate arpeggiated guitar punctuated by cymbal swells opens this mini-epic that can’t hold a candle to “Hummer” or “Soma,” but is nonetheless effective for what it is. “Galapogos” is too AOR-lite for most tastes, and the blurry New Agey production doesn’t help matters at all. However, its position in the album sequencing will prevent any significance from being attached to it, and should be a harmless diversion. Worst lyric: “Carve out your heart for keeps in an old oak tree/and hold me for goodbyes and whispered lullabyes.”

8. “Stumbeline”
Situated in the middle of the record, “Stumbeline” could be treated as an intermission or just an afterthought to the first seven tracks. With just Corgan’s delicate acoustic guitar and naked, untreated voice, it’s almost uncomfortably intimate, but short and quiet enough to tune out. This one would be a model B-side, but it also sounds great closing out the second side of the first LP. Worst lyric: “Jack it up Judy set your heart alight/Mayfair mistress of the satellites.”

(LP Two, Side One)
9. “Where Boys Fear to Tread”
It’s time to bring back The Rock, boys and girls, and what better way to open the second half of the record with what sounds like the band plugging in, taking a few last sips of beer, and warming up for the bludgeoning they must administer? “Where Boys Fear to Tread” mows over the terrain like a tank, crushing everything in its path and leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. Also a prime example of that thick, distinctive “Pumpkins guitar” sound so imitated for the next five years. Worst lyric: “A go-go kids, a go-go style/a suck suck kiss, a suck suck smile.”

10. “Bullet with Butterfly Wings”
From the opening “The world is a vampire” lyric to the lame wah-guitar wankfest that concludes the song, “Bullet” is a monstrous embarrassment to the band, the whole asinine “alternative” scene, and ’90s rock in general, not to mention a permanent blemish on the Pumpkins’ singles record (although “Disarm” was the first serious misstep). That singular line in the chorus perfectly encapsulates what people hated most about the Smashing Pumpkins, and any fan with the slightest degree of integrity hung their head low at the immediate popularity of this ridiculous angst-anthem. Yet because of my Inclusion of Singles rule, I’m forced to acknowledge this clunker in the final cut. Worst lyric: it should be pretty obvious.

11. “Thirty-Three”
After the filthy self-absorption and grunge posturing of “Bullet,” “Thirty-Three” is a cool, refreshing glass of water, and as a single it’s not entirely objectionable. The simple six-note piano motif gets a little tiring, but there are enough clever production tricks here to keep it from being distracting. Odd for Corgan to write such an optimistic acoustic ballad, but I’m sure no one’s complaining. Worst lyric: “I’ll make the effort, love can last forever/graceful swans of never topple to the earth.”

12. “In the Arms of Sleep”
I once read somewhere that Corgan actually recorded something like thirty tracks of Ebow’d guitar for the soft undercurrent of sound flowing through “In the Arms of Sleep.” That takes patience, friends, as well as a good pair of stones, and is enough to warrant its participation here. This one was always a high school mixtape favorite, casually nestled in somewhere on the second side, made especially for that platonic girlfriend who would discover it and suddenly come to her senses. High praises to anyone who can figure out what “suffer my desire” is supposed to mean. Worst lyric: “I steal a kiss from her sleeping shadow moves/’cause I’ll always miss her wherever she goes.”

(LP Two, Side Two)
13. “Bodies”
Seemingly impenetrable, with an irresistible, punishing groove, ”Bodies” is essentially “Where Boys Fear to Tread” on methamphetamines and will have listeners running back to the heaviness of Gish. Chamberlin’s drumming in particular is flawless, and if one ignores the inanity of the repeated “love is suicide” lyric, what’s left is a furious and rather kickass guitar workout. Bonus points for the noisy first ten seconds and the bizarre guitar pickings during the break. Sadly, the band would never really rock like this again. Worst lyric: “Love is suicide/love is suicide/love is suicide/love is suicide.”

“Bodies” – Smashing Pumpkins 4:12 (Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, Virgin 1995)

14. “Tonight, Tonight”
One of the band’s biggest successes, to be sure, but to these ears, “Tonight, Tonight” is an exhausting example of Corgan’s ego-fueled pomposity and his uncontrollable desire to dress up a good song with sweeping, sappy orchestration. This track is proof positive that as a general rule, strings are nearly always a bad idea; remove them here and what remains is a decent pop song, although battered and out of breath. Evidently, Corgan learned nothing from “Disarm.” The original Mellon Collie sequenced this as the first real “song” on the album, bestowing it a measure of importance that it doesn’t deserve. Worst lyric: “Believe that life can change, that you’re not stuck in vain/we’re not the same, we’re different tonight/tonight, so bright.”

15. “Thru the Eyes of Ruby”
Though it contains a queasy amount of phased guitar during the first two minutes, “Ruby” is a bloated, prog-rock indulgence that I’ll allow, simply because it closes with an endearing reprise of the title track, giving the “new” Mellon Collie a circular, organic quality that the original was lacking. No different than “Porcelina,” really, the song is a psychedelic love-fantasy that works well enough as the album closer. Worst lyric: “Wrap me up in always, and drag me in with maybes/your innocence is treasure, your innocence is death/your innocence is all I have.”

When all is said and done, the “new” Mellon Collie clocks in at a healthy 62 minutes, the same length as Siamese Dream (1993). While not quite comparable to the release before it, my updated, truncated version is streamlined and efficient, delivering one decent track after another without skipping, and meanders much less than the original. Give it a try.