Hidden Tracks

[House of Mustard]

Why?

I have several CDs with hidden songs tacked on them, and it's starting to bug me.  I can understand it with some things - when the song is quite unusual (like the orchestration at the end of Matchbox 20's second album) or when it's something other than music (like the concert excerpts or the studio bloopers on BNL's 'Gordon' and 'Rock Spectacle').

But what about when it's just a song?  What is the point of sticking it at the end of another song?  For example, on BNL's 'Maroon', the song "Hidden Sun" is tacked on the end of "Last thing on my mind".  It wouldn't bug me except that I hate "Last thing..." and I love "Hidden sun",  and I can't listen to it without fast forwarding through the other.  The same goes with the new Dido CD:  I don't like the last track, but I love the hidden track.

Why do they do this?  I have a hard time imagining that it's a marketing ploy - since it's unadvertised.  I think they do it just to tick me off.

[Lieutenant Kije]

From the albums that I have with hidden tracks (Pet Shop Boys - Very, Pete Yorn - Music for the Morning After, Olive - Trickle) I would say that the hidden tracks are songs that are either extra little ditties that aren't fully produced songs or songs that the producer didn't think were good enough to include in the album proper.  That's just what I get from the albums I have, though.

[Fellfrosch]

I love the hidden track on the Alien Ant Farm cd, but it's so annoying to have to listen to (or fast forward through) all that dead air just to get to it.

[Spriggan]

on one Wierd All CD (can't remeber which but I think it's the one that makes fun of nirvana's "Smells like teen spirit" if you let it run for like 8-10 min you get a single burp.

[Mistress of Darkness]

"Off the Deep End" is the Album I think you are referring to Sprig. And I thought he was screaming at the end? But it's my dad's CD and it's been a long time since I've listened to it. I seem to remember than in the liner notes Weird Al explains the track as sometimes people forget to turn their CD players off after the CD is over, so he wanted to give them a friendly reminder.

I don't know why they have hidden tracks. Though I've heard of .mp3/.wav conversion programs. Maybe you could rip the track and then edit it so that you have an .mp3 with just the hidden track you like.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

It's kind of insipid just to put them into the same CD track as another song. It's fine not to label it, just put it on it's own dang track. The first HFS "Just Passin' Thru" CD had a hidden track, and since they're 99.1 fm, they put it on track 99. With tracks 15-98 being 6 secs of silence. Still kind of annoying. and actually more difficult to skip through to the end. and a worthless hidden song, with only two lines of a band spoofing their own song. GRRR> that made me angry.

[Eagle Prince]

I have not the slightest clue on why they do hidden tracks.  It could be that a lot of bands do them just because they've saw other bands do it.  It could possibly even go back to records were you could play it backwards for a hidden message.  I can think of one album though with a couple hidden tracks that basically trash on the record producer who released the album, so I'd say at least some do it to get material past that they don't what the record company seeing until too late.  In some ways its cool, but in other ways its definatily annoying.

The CD I'm thinking about also had the songs on their own tracks, but 98 and 99 just like Ehlers was saying, with all the in-between tracks being 3 or 6 seconds of silence.  I like the idea of having them just like all the other songs, just not listed on the album cover.

I also have a CD with several hidden tracks, however they were avertised and not every CD had them.  And it would only have one, not both.  So even if you got lucky, you'd have to buy the album twice to get both extra songs.  So there's at least one case of it being a marketing ploy.

[John-E-Boi]

Nine Inch Nails-

on their Broken CD has 2 additional tracks, both covers, on of an old PIGFACE song, and the other of an old Adam Ant song.

Tracks 98 - 99

course, from track 8-97 is dead air.

I personally like the one on Nirvana's Nevermind.

[Onion of Death]

I love hidden songs. But it is kind of annoying when you have to wait through fifteen minutes of silence (also known as Our Lady Peace's "The Wonderful Future") just to get to it. I like how AFI included the lyrics to their "hidden" song in the booklet, but didn't put it on the cd case.

My favorite hidden track ever has to be Duncan Sheik's song "Foreshadowing". It's like a six minute all-acoustic song, with some great lyrics. In close second would be "This Time Imperfect" by AFI though. Their both great songs off of great albums.

[stacer]

There's a hidden track on one of my Kate Rusby CDs (Little Lights) that's just her and a few kids singing a kid song. You have to wait about 2 minutes for it to come up, and it's not as high quality a recording as the rest of the cd. It's just a fun little ditty. The words are on the insert, but the song name isn't on the case. I doubt it would be a marketing ploy in this case because it's a folk cd--they're not going to be selling so many that a bonus track is going to make a difference, I'm thinking. I think it's just supposed to be a nice surprise.

[Maxwell]

there's a idden track on my bloodhound gang CD(hooray for boobies) it's on track 51 tracks 25-50 are just six seconds of silence each, but the song isnt really a song... they start sing" how do you let someone know if your hotcakes are selling well" then they start humming a tune and yelling about how they hate their agents it's very odd...

[Sminja]

T.F.O., I've heard those tracks, and yes, it is very weird. I thought they were part of the songs at first, but then I looked at the display and realized they were different tracks altogether...

[angel]

I love those things, they freak me out out, but they're funny as heck.

[Heahengel]

Hidden tracks don't bother me much unless they are preceeded by a lot of dead space on the same track as some other song.  I like to play my CDs on random and repeat, so hate to have to pay attention and skip after the end of a song, or listen to 15 mins of silence.  They aren't so bad when the hidden track is placed right after another song (like System of a Down did on Toxicity - I forget what the actual track was called).  Also, bands seem to think that because its a hidden track it doesn't have to be at all enjoyable.  This would be somewhat true except that they tend to attach them to other songs - and thereby ruin them.  There are a lot of songs that would be on my playlists but aren't because of hidden tracks.

[Sharm]

How about putting only one track with dead air, immediately followed by the hidden track.  It's the dead air that bugs me.  If I could just get to the song without any fuss, then hidden tracks would be cool.