Someone suggested that this should be its own thread, and I agree. I feel like CD bonus tracks are a really dated 90’s concept. “Look what we can do with this technology! Seeeeecrets!” I’m always surprised when I hear a new CD with bonus tracks.
Now that I rip CDs onto my computer and listen to them digitally, I don’t really mind the hidden “track 99” or whatever. If it’s worth keeping, I can delete tracks 14-98 (like the two on Broken), or I can delete the bonus track as well (like Linda Summertime).
What really drives me nuts is the discs that have a secret song after an extended silence on the same track. A good example is the Jack Black contribution on Probot. I like that song, but to hear it, I need to sit through the whole King Diamond song and then 5 more minutes of silence. Lame. In some cases (like Probot), I’ve resorted to doing a snip job in GarageBand to separate the tracks.
Hahaha!!! I’ve had that Probot album for over 10 years and you’re telling me there’s a hidden track on it? Oh well. I hate Jack Black anyway.
I was at Grumpy’s place once and he played that silly Willy Nelson-esque version of “Stigmata” which he told me was on “Cover Up”. I owned that album and got rid of it before ever finding it.
The only time I REALLY loved a hidden track was on Grotus’ “Slow Motion Apocalypse”. At the end of the CD (after a 10 minute silence) is an unlisted track called “Brown” which is honestly the best thing they’ve ever done and reason enough to own the album.
But the whole concept of “secret tracks” is retarded. Tell me it’s there. Tell me what it is. If there’s something interesting it might make me more prone to buy the disc.
But, aside from the one exception just noted (which should just be a normal listed track so I don’t have to hold my finger on FF for 2 minutes to hear the song) I have NEVER felt excited or blessed by any secret track.
As to the 90s “secret bonus track” trend - it annoyed me after a while because there was this implication that there’s something lurking beyond the silence that only ‘hardcore’ listeners will be able to handle, like the tracks that capped off “Nevermind” and “Undertow.” Or perhaps the more blasphemous than usual “Suck” at the end of the “Broken” mcd.
I guess some people do get a thrill from that sort of “pssst…there’s no one left now but us” kind of intimacy that these ‘hidden’ tracks are supposed to create. And that’s fine. But I’m also of the opinion that, if your material is strong enough to place on an album in the first place, you may as well announce its existence on the album packaging with all the other tracks. If you have to willfully partition your audience between casual fans and more strong-willed listeners who will patiently wait for the little doodles of experimentalism that follow the digital silences, well…your band / project has some identity issues that need working out.
I think the X-Files disc had the worst one. From Wikipedia:
Producers used the Compact Disc’s pregap, so a listener would have to actually manually rewind the first track a full nine minutes to hear two additional hidden tracks, “Time Jesum Transeuntum Et Non Riverentum” and a cover of The X-Files theme song, both performed by Nick Cave and Dirty Three.[9] This is hinted at in the album’s liner booklet, which notes “Nick Cave and the Dirty Three would like you to know that “0” is also a number”.[10] The use of these hidden tracks has been described as “just the sort of surprise one might have suspected from a show that deals in unexplainable mysteries”.[11] Not all CD or DVD players will allow the album to be “rewound” back to these tracks as this violates Red Book standards.[12]
I’m not as pissed about “bonus tracks” and “exclusive tracks”, though they’re a bit annoying too.
Oh, look! Judas priest has a live version of “Breaking the Law” as one of the bonus tracks on the re-issue of “British Steel”. That’s just great . . . and if I want it, all I have to do is buy the same album I already bought before.
I understand WHY they do it, but I think it’s kind of shitty and lowball. I wish they just released this stuff as the B-tracks for singles (though I don’t recall the last time I ever bought a CD Single, haha) or just a collection of live tracks, rarities, etc.
Or if they are going to do “Special Edition” releases, maybe put those extra doo-dads on a second disc, or give a download code for people who give a shit (I mostly don’t).
I honestly think that an album, as an album, is and should be a body of work that stands as an artistic entity. PARANOID by Black Sabbath has 8 tracks on it. They are the perfect 8 tracks, in the perfect order. Adding tracks 9-11 of Ozzy doing warm up vocals on the tour bus, or Iommi playing “Smoke on the Water” at the Alabama blues festival in 2014 does NOT make the album better.
It is like saying, “Yeah, the Mona Lisa is a great work of art, but so is Playboy! Let’s airbrush some tits on Leonardo’s bitch and bring in some new fans.”
I like what record companies are doing nowadays-putting out standard and deluxe versions of things. Casual fans can get the cheaper basic CD and hardcore fans can get the deluxe version with all of the extras.
But yeah, I agree about hidden tracks. It was a cool idea at first, but now it’s expected with certain artists and is becoming a chore.
I think Broken was the first time I encountered it, although those tracks were pressed on a free mini CD when it first came out, then the later pressings had them as hidden tracks, I guess just to keep the tracks as freebies with a regularly priced EP.
The most interesting hidden track is on Marilyn Manson’s Mechanical Animals. It had a hidden CD-ROM extra that played the song if you thought to put it in a computer. I only caught it because the bottom of the case had a small “made with macromedia” caption next to the copyright.
Nirvana’s Nevermind tripped me out with this. So I bought the CD when it came out. Listened to it a few times. then one day I was cleaning my house listening to the CD and the CD ended I kept working, then surprisingly I hear… cha, chug-chug guitar and shit. Then they go batshit crazy for like 8 mins.
I thought it was cool as hell. It surprised me and I didn’t know I had the song. Nowadays, everything is documented. (Fan sites, wiki, etc) When we go to concerts we can pull the setlist before we go. It’s kind of fucked up.
I don’t mind the “exclusive tracks” trend. If it’s a band I’m only mildly interested in, I’ll just ignore them. If it’s a band I really dig, then I like hunting down extra stuff.
The only situations I really don’t like the exclusive thing is when…
A) There are different tracks that are exclusive to different versions. I’ve never run across this from a band I like, but I remember reading about the headache that the Smashing Pumpkins caused with this.
-or-
B) The “deluxe” edition comes out only a few months after the initial release. This is such a shitty cash-grab move. If it’s a 10th/15th/whatever anniversary of a landmark album, then that’s cool. If the deluxe comes out as an option with the original release, that’s cool. If the standard edition comes out, and then they announce a fancy pants version, that sucks. Bowie’s last album is a good example of that.
I think the X-Files disc had the worst one. From Wikipedia:
Producers used the Compact Disc’s pregap, so a listener would have to actually manually rewind the first track a full nine minutes to hear two additional hidden tracks, “Time Jesum Transeuntum Et Non Riverentum” and a cover of The X-Files theme song, both performed by Nick Cave and Dirty Three.[9] This is hinted at in the album’s liner booklet, which notes “Nick Cave and the Dirty Three would like you to know that “0” is also a number”.[10] The use of these hidden tracks has been described as “just the sort of surprise one might have suspected from a show that deals in unexplainable mysteries”.[11] Not all CD or DVD players will allow the album to be “rewound” back to these tracks as this violates Red Book standards.[12]
Sort of related, but if you play your heavy metal records backwards you can literally hear Satan talking to you.
I’m not fluent in “backwards,” but I DO know that the word SATAN is invariably NOSH-DISH when reversed. Seriously, go put on any Mercyful Fate / King Diamond live LP in which the King speaks the word “Satan” during between-song chats, and tell me if you don’t hear it as NOSH-DISH when reversed…
Little off topic but Lee Harvey Oswald’s participation in a radio debate played backwards you hear him state “I want to kill president”, " need a powerful gun", “they’re powerful”, " the lonely camelot". No wonder it was open and shut case so quickly.
I remember a cool presentation at one of the church camps or something when I was a kid. It was about different music stuff and things to be cautious of, yadda yadda.
The dude that gave the presentation was actually pretty cool and when it came to the back-masking stuff, he was straight up and said it was mostly inferred stuff and people’s active imaginations finding stuff that they are looking for . . .
He played a sample from “Stairway to Heaven” on reverse loop with the translated words on screen, “My sweet Satan! There’s power in Satan!” etc. And, yeah, it kinda sounded like that’s what he was saying.
Then he put up a new slide with something else about “Shop at Safeway! There’s more savings at Safeway!” . . . . and, yeah, it ALSO sounded exactly like that, hahaha!!!
I remember a cool presentation at one of the church camps or something when I was a kid. It was about different music stuff and things to be cautious of, yadda yadda.
The dude that gave the presentation was actually pretty cool and when it came to the back-masking stuff, he was straight up and said it was mostly inferred stuff and people’s active imaginations finding stuff that they are looking for . . .
He played a sample from “Stairway to Heaven” on reverse loop with the translated words on screen, “My sweet Satan! There’s power in Satan!” etc. And, yeah, it kinda sounded like that’s what he was saying.
Then he put up a new slide with something else about “Shop at Safeway! There’s more savings at Safeway!” . . . . and, yeah, it ALSO sounded exactly like that, hahaha!!!
Hahaha well - you probably remember the farce of a trial held in the wake of the Judas Priest “Better by You, Better than Me” suicide, in which the victims allegedly heard back-masked Rob Halford urging them to “DO IT”…
I think the trial jurors were played the offending sample without being told beforehand what they were supposed to hear, and at least one believed that the command was “give me a peppermint.”
There’s an interlude / song by Foetus (can’t remember the name now, I bet Eureka would know) in which he vocally imitates the most famous backwards-masked messages to hilarious effect (merging “myyyy sweet Satan” with “tuuu-uuurnn me oooo-ooon, dead maaaan”)
If you’re trying to make a list of all the cds that had bomnus tracks on them, your list will be pretty long indeed - even if you just limit it to industrial-related cds.
Sister Machine Gun’s Burn had both a bonus song at the beginning and another after the end of the last song.
Dink’s Blame It On Tito EP had 2 extra bonus mixes after the last track.
I can’t think of any examples of the secret track, beyond what’s mentioned here, apart from Arab Strap’s Cherubs EP. They stuck a cover Ben Kenobi Theme before the first song which I didn’t know about for a long time. I could never work out how to rip it either, which was even more annoying. I’m going to look that up now. Anwyay, it’s a great piece of music: https://youtu.be/ECeLd320kmk
I have to say I rather enjoyed the Jack Black track on Probot. I’m not a particular fan of his, but y’know… I Am The Warlock! Great to sing along to.
They really were everywhere in the 90’s. It got to the point where it was almost expected. But most were pretty normal - just a track after some silence or a bunch of blank tracks followed by something. The more creative ones were less common.
Like Out Out’s Voiceprint, which had intros to several of the tracks as negative space before them. So if you played the album all the way through, it would play track 3, then the intro to track 4 and then track 4. But if you skipped to track 4, you’d never hear the intro, and if you just listened to track 3, you wouldn’t hear it either. To skip to the intros, you’d need to start at track 4 and rewind.