’Tis the season for no new music and greatest hits releases.

Traditionally, record companies don’t like releasing new music by big name artists right before the holidays, so what fans are usually left with are greatest hits compilations.

The Smashing Pumpkins are next in line for the “greatest of” treatment.

After 12 years of making music together, dealing with heroin-addicted band members and kicking people out of the band, the Pumpkins officially disbanded last year.

There were several bands that split ways that year, and the Pumpkins’ split hit the music industry hardest.

The disc covers most of the basics and the only songs noticeably missing are “The End Is the Beginning Is the End” from the “Batman & Robin” soundtrack and “Mayonaise” off of “Siamese Dream” (and perhaps some people won’t even know it’s missing). There are 16 greatest hits and two unreleased songs contained on this disc to behold frontman Billy Corgan in all his songwriting glory.

But this disc is not without its problems. The biggest problem with this set is that it has way too much material on it from after the band started going downhill. One can argue the band never came close to putting out a record comparable to 1995’s “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.” The ensuing CDs, “Adore” and “MACHINA/The Machines of God,” were disappointing, plain and simple. This CD has way too much material from those CDs that weren’t really great hits at all. Wouldn’t this CD have been just as good without including “Stand Inside Your Love?”

The first pressings of this compilation include a bonus disc, “Judas O.” The second is filled with 16 B-sides and rarities. If you missed any soundtrack contributions or their import singles or EPs, chances are you’ll find it here. But be forewarned, B-sides are B-sides for a reason and were usually cut from the record because they either suck or are lame. The Smashing Pumpkins were not without such B-sides.