Hear Me Out: Decimation

(DISCLAIMER: The intent of this article is not to belittle the art of the double album, nor is the point to diminish the worth of the albums featured below. My goal is not to "fix" these albums, and I support the artists' decisions when it comes to how they present their art. Just so we're clear.)

The double album: a career move meant to distinguish a batch of songs as something special. An artistic vision that simply can't be confined by standard definitions or time constraints. Many of our greatest musical landmarks run outside of the accepted parameters of what an album should be. Sometimes it's a grand statement, a series of musical moments strung together into something magical and cinematic. Other times, it's a way to express disparate emotions, a way to segregate when an artist is going for two distinct approaches at the same time. Sometimes it's simply a case of a creative outburst that grew too fast and too wild.

Far be it for me to play God with someone else's work, but I thought it would be fun to revisit some high profile double/triple albums and act as a cold, ruthless editor. So, that's what I did. In keeping with the decimation/tens aspect, I've limited myself to just ten albums, and each one of them is being revised to only ten songs. In some cases it was easy, in some cases not so much and, on at least a few occasions, I felt as though I was committing a foul act of absolute heresy. But, at least I had fun with it. If you dare to see what some popular multi-disc releases look like cut down to the bare minimum, read on.

THE BEATLES

S/T (aka The White Album)

Released: 1968

Original run time: 93 minutes (30 tracks)

Revised run time: 33 minutes

Revised tracklist: Back In the U.S.S.R. • Dear Prudence • Glass Onion • Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da • While My Guitar Gently Weeps • Happiness Is a Warm Gun • Blackbird • Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey • Helter Skelter • Revolution 1

I know, right? Did he really start there? How can you take arguably rock's most beloved and influential double albums and just cut away two thirds of it? Well, I did; and, while no doubt most of you will argue, "why isn't (such and such) on there?" or "how could you keep (such and such) but not (such and such)?", the fact is those ten are all killer tunes that I could not in good conscience throw to the cutting room floor.

PINK FLOYD

The Wall

Released: 1979

Original run time: 81 minutes (26 tracks)

Revised run time: 43 minutes

Revised tracklist: In the Flesh? • Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2 • Mother • Goodbye Blue Sky • Young Lust • One of My Turns • Hey You • Comfortably Numb • Run Like Hell • The Trial

Ugh. I felt dirty doing this one; it's a whole story, with nuance and intrigue and dramatic swings, and I just chopped away most of the bits that flesh it all out. I did manage to keep the beginning and the end pretty much intact, but lopping off most of the Another Brick in the Wall suite feels like a grievous error. Still, like with The Beatles, there's no denying how strong this track list is.

GUNS N' ROSES

Use Your Illusion

Released: 1991

Original run time: 152 minutes (30 tracks)

Revised run time: 57 minutes

Revised tracklist: Civil War • You Could Be Mine • Don't Cry • Locomotive • Estranged • Dead Horse • Get In the Ring • Yesterdays • Garden of Eden • November Rain

G n' R's follow-up to undisputed classic Appetite for Destruction was pretty much a textbook definition of excess; epic ballads, covers of classics, weird detours... everything bigger, badder, more. For the purposes of this edit, I excluded covers from inclusion, and tried to represent both the cinematic and down and dirty sides of this era of the band. I also fiddled around with the track order to give it some ebb and flow. FYI, November Rain is one holy hell badass closer.

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

Released: 1995

Original run time: 121 minutes (28 tracks)

Revised run time: 42 minutes

Revised tracklist: Tonight, Tonight • Bullet With Butterfly Wings • 1979 • Here Is No Why • To Forgive • Fuck You (An Ode to No One) • Stumbleine • Zero • Thirty-Three • X.Y.U.

Considering how much this album was edited down before release (from a pool of some 60 songs), cutting Billy Corgan's masterpiece down to just ten songs seems a little unfair. Still, I managed to do it, in such a way that left out some songs I really like but includes all five hit singles alongside the album tracks I dig the most. It leans kind of heavy on the rock side, but I think it's solid.

METALLICA

Load/Reload

Released: 1996/1997

Original combined run time: 155 minutes (27 tracks)

Revised run time: 58 minutes

Revised tracklist: King Nothing • Fuel • Until It Sleeps • Hero of the Day • Bleeding Me • 2x4 • The Memory Remains • Bad Seed • Where the Wild Things Are • The Outlaw Torn

Okay, so these were actually released about a year and a half apart, but they were originally conceived as a double album. Nonetheless, Load and Reload aren't looked back on too fondly by many Metallica fans; maybe if they'd cut away some of the excess fat (you know, like 97 minutes of it), they could have left a more favorable impression with the follow-up to The Black Album.

NINE INCH NAILS

The Fragile

Released: 1999

Original run time: 103 minutes (23 tracks)

Revised run time: 49 minutes

Revised tracklist: The Day the World Went Away • The Wretched • We're In This Together • The Frail • The Great Below • Into the Void • Where Is Everybody? • Starfuckers, Inc. • The Big Come Down • Underneath It All

This wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, since cutting the interludes and instrumentals meant only five actual songs had to be cut. Still, it feels bad to strip away all the nuance that makes this such a special and important part of Trent Reznor's discography. That said, that's a great batch of tunes up there.

RADIOHEAD

Kid A/Amnesiac

Released: 2000/2001

Original combined run time: 94 minutes (22 tracks)

Revised run time: 46 minutes

Revised tracklist: Everything In Its Right Place • I Might Be Wrong • Idioteque • Knives Out • Morning Bell (Amnesiac Version) • Optimistic • Pyramid Song • The National Anthem • Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors • How to Disappear Completely

Recorded during the same sessions but released as two different albums, Kid A and Amnesiac are Radiohead's difficult response to the stardom that OK Computer wrought. Kid A was highly lauded as a masterpiece, while Amnesiac will always be seen in some circles as its oddball little brother. The tracklist I came up here hazards a guess at what may have come out had Radiohead dialed back on the oddities and gone for the gusto. Some of the albums' weirdness is preserved with Everything In Its Right Place and Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors, but the remainder of the songs reveal just how much quality content Radiohead was capable of producing in their peak. This, as a single album, could have been a massive smash.

FOO FIGHTERS

In Your Honor

Released: 2005

Original run time: 83 minutes (20 tracks)

Revised run time: 42 minutes

Revised tracklist: In Your Honor • No Way Back • Best of You • Resolve • Razor • DOA • Miracle • Hell • End Over End • Still

This one's kind of low hanging fruit; devised as a record of two album-length halves, one electric and one acoustic, In Your Honor ended up with a fair amount of filler in my opinion. So, I took seven of the electric songs and matched them up with three of the acoustic songs, creating a single album that gives much the same experience and brings more consistent quality.

RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS

Stadium Arcadium

Released: 2006

Original run time: 122 minutes (28 tracks)

Revised run time: 47 minutes

Revised tracklist: Stadium Arcadium • Dani California • Snow (Hey Oh) • Desecration Smile • Hard To Concentrate • Tell Me Baby • Slow Cheetah • Readymade • Torture Me • Animal Bar

When I finished up this tracklist, the big takeaway for me was just how few of the 28 songs on Stadium Arcadium have really held up in the decade since its release; aside from the singles (and I even omitted one of them), there isn't all that much here that's memorable or truly remarkable. Still, I think the ten that made the cut combine into a really solid record.

GREEN DAY

¡Uno!/¡Dos!/¡Tré!

Released: 2012

Original combined run time: 127 minutes (37 tracks)

Revised run time: 40 minutes

Revised tracklist: Let Yourself Go • X-Kid • Stay the Night • Stray Heart • Brutal Love • 99 Revolutions • Nuclear Family • Stop When the Red Lights Flash • Dirty Rotten Bastards • Oh Love

37 songs is a lot for anyone to take on at once, which is why Green Day were kind enough to release them as three albums over the span of three months. Thing is, these albums were so scattershot and had so much sub-par material that non-completist fans lost interest by the time the third one came out; to date, the three albums combined have failed to match the sales of previous (single) album 21st Century Breakdown. Maybe some trimming is in order, yes? The tracklist I came up with pulls from a little of each part of the trilogy, while inserting a few of the choice album cuts (and avoiding a couple of the really bad singles). The spirit of what the band was trying to capture is there, and I think it proves that it's a spirit that was well worth capturing. ONCE. Not three times, but ONCE.

So, there we have it. Try these mixes out and see if they work for you. Or, substitute your own choices and prove you're better than me. Or, just yell at me in the comments. It's all good.