What if Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was one disc...

So I was watching the Best of Pumpkins Video collection over the weekend and got stuck thoroughly enjoying it. The Pumpkins have always been a band that was taken for granted for me. I mean I have always been a huge fan, but since I assumed that it was a great album, I wouldn't take the time to enjoy it.

Anyways, I was thinking about the vastness of Mellon Collie... and how it was great, amongst the...well filler isn't the right word, but it's the only one that comes to mind. Here's the track listing:

Disc one: Dawn to Dusk
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Tonight, Tonight
Jellybelly
Zero
Here Is No Why
Bullet with Butterfly Wings
To Forgive
Fuck You (An Ode to No One)
Love
Cupid de Locke
Galapogos
Muzzle
Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
Take Me Down

Disc two: Twilight to Starlight
Where Boys Fear to Tread
Bodies
Thirty-Three
In the Arms of Sleep
1979
Tales of a Scorched Earth
Thru the Eyes of Ruby
Stumbleine
X.Y.U.
We Only Come Out at Night
Beautiful
Lily (My One and Only)
By Starlight
Farewell and Goodnight

Whew...that's a load, and it extends to so many different sounds. Remember, this is the direct full release following the explosion that was Siamese Dream, so they probably could have released Billy Corgan doing the "Luke, I am your father" into a fan for 8 tracks and it would have been a success, especially with the steller-ness of Bullet with Butterfly Wings.

So what if it was just one album? Say 13 tracks? I think it makes my top ten by a hair, but it would surely be a top five without all 28 tangents. Plus, that would leave 15 tracks to work on to make a stronger Mellon Collie... follow up in Adore, which doesn't move me like I had hoped it would. It may have also prolonged the magic for the Pumpkins. The undertaking of a 28 track album and subsequential promotion/touring and the unyielding ambition of Billy had to greatly tire the band.

Anyways, here is the album I would make...

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

Tonight, Tonight

Fuck You (An Ode to No One)

Love

Cupid de Locke

Bullet with Butterfly Wings

Galapogos

Muzzle

Porcelina of the Vast Oceans

Thirty-Three

1979

Stumbleine

Farewell and Goodnight

Yes, I left off Zero. Great song, but I never felt like it fit the Mellon Collie... vibe, especially with the superior An Ode to No One already on the disc taking the spot of the dark, harder track. Zero would be a great lead single for any album, and probably would have given Adore a nice boast for a single.

Other then that, I would have played this one-disc'er on repeat obsessively and not feel like I needed to switch to disc two and stumble through some of the more cumbersome tracks. This album would easily be remembered as a legendary, decade defining rock record, possibly displacing Siamese Dream to a second place on the Smashing Pumpkins best of list.

Anyways, it was just a what-if that coulda-been...