Hidden Tracks

What do you think? I think in the days of tapes and the early days of CDs, sure I guess they were kind of 'neat' in the sense that it may have been a surprise and you felt gifted. But come on...ever since the late 90s, or even sooner, I've felt it's ridiculously stupid for artists to put tracks at the end of a long silence. Who do they think they are kidding? Like we can't see the counter on our compact disc players, computer media player, portable MP3 player, that tells us the track is not over and has a hell of a lot longer to go? It's just annoying. I'm always baffled when I hear a new or very recent release that has something like this. Come on people, it's 2010...you can't fool us. Just make it a regular track already and don't bother us with this wasted time nonsense.

I can't remember off the top of my head which album/ ep it was but I was really stoned once and not feeling to bright. I was drifting in semi-consciousness when one of those secret tracks (which I had comletely forgot about) starts up after about 20 minutes of silence. I totaly freaked out! LoL

almost no one does that nowadays anyway

  On 2/24/2010 at 6:45 PM, beerwolf said:

I can't remember off the top of my head which album/ ep it was but I was really stoned once and not feeling to bright. I was drifting in semi-consciousness when one of those secret tracks (which I had comletely forgot about) starts up after about 20 minutes of silence. I totaly freaked out! LoL

Same thing happened to me once - I wasn't stoned though. I can't remember what album I was listening to but I was working so I hadn't really paid attention to the music and therefore hadn't noticed that music had stopped but all of a sudden I begin to hear voices and I freaked out. My heart started beating as if I had been running a marathon and I didn't move a muscle until I suddenly realised that it was a hidden track.

  On 2/24/2010 at 7:14 PM, Squee said:

  On 2/24/2010 at 6:45 PM, beerwolf said:

I can't remember off the top of my head which album/ ep it was but I was really stoned once and not feeling to bright. I was drifting in semi-consciousness when one of those secret tracks (which I had comletely forgot about) starts up after about 20 minutes of silence. I totaly freaked out! LoL

 

Same thing happened to me once - I wasn't stoned though. I can't remember what album I was listening to but I was working so I hadn't really paid attention to the music and therefore hadn't noticed that music had stopped but all of a sudden I begin to hear voices and I freaked out. My heart started beating as if I had been running a marathon and I didn't move a muscle until I suddenly realised that it was a hidden track.

I had a very similar experience. I was listening to Urban Hymns by The Verve whilst trying to fall asleep. I woke up to hear a baby crying and totally shit myself. At one point, because the room was so dark, I was convinced that I had died or something. The sigh of relief I gave when I realised what was going on must have been heard on Mars!

  On 2/24/2010 at 6:34 PM, sidewinder said:

What do you think? I think in the days of tapes and the early days of CDs, sure I guess they were kind of 'neat' in the sense that it may have been a surprise and you felt gifted. But come on...ever since the late 90s, or even sooner, I've felt it's ridiculously stupid for artists to put tracks at the end of a long silence. Who do they think they are kidding? Like we can't see the counter on our compact disc players, computer media player, portable MP3 player, that tells us the track is not over and has a hell of a lot longer to go? It's just annoying. I'm always baffled when I hear a new or very recent release that has something like this. Come on people, it's 2010...you can't fool us. Just make it a regular track already and don't bother us with this wasted time nonsense.

i feel the exact same way. it's so annoying seeing track times: 2:33, 2:56...20:15....hmm i wonder what the deal is there. are we expected to be listening on our walkmans?

it pisses me off when the artists decide to put said hidden track or tracks as #s 98 & 99 so you have to skip through all those useless tracks to get there. i paid you to listen to your music, you self important dope, would you just let me do it in peace?

it's even more bizarre when bands do this on their vinyl records. i can physically see that there are blank grooves before the "hidden track", so what are you playing at?

culprit #1: "the difference between you and me is that i'm not on fire"by mclusky.

  On 2/24/2010 at 7:26 PM, JohnTqs said:

  On 2/24/2010 at 6:34 PM, sidewinder said:

What do you think? I think in the days of tapes and the early days of CDs, sure I guess they were kind of 'neat' in the sense that it may have been a surprise and you felt gifted. But come on...ever since the late 90s, or even sooner, I've felt it's ridiculously stupid for artists to put tracks at the end of a long silence. Who do they think they are kidding? Like we can't see the counter on our compact disc players, computer media player, portable MP3 player, that tells us the track is not over and has a hell of a lot longer to go? It's just annoying. I'm always baffled when I hear a new or very recent release that has something like this. Come on people, it's 2010...you can't fool us. Just make it a regular track already and don't bother us with this wasted time nonsense.

 

i feel the exact same way. it's so annoying seeing track times: 2:33, 2:56...20:15....hmm i wonder what the deal is there. are we expected to be listening on our walkmans?

The worst thing about that is that I've got a crap Ipod that only holds a certain amount of songs. If I like a song that has a hidden track attached to it and it comes up at 35 minutes, thats half of my fucking space filled!

Locked grooves I get, hidden tracks not so much. Hidden tracks are clever once, after that their annoying.

thank you for having the courage to address this issue. if no one speaks, there is only silence.

  On 2/24/2010 at 7:38 PM, fox said:

it pisses me off when the artists decide to put said hidden track or tracks as #s 98 & 99 so you have to skip through all those useless tracks to get there. i paid you to listen to your music, you self important dope, would you just let me do it in peace?

Hahaha, Nine Inch Nails

I think it's important that we do some consensus building on this, alzado, or we may be unable to defend ourselves when hordes of hidden-track-suckage-deniers descend upon us. your sarcasm is not appreciated in a discussion of such great import as this.

can't tell you how many times i've been utterly confounded by the end of drane2 randomly playing at an unexpected time (usually right after the song).

  On 2/24/2010 at 8:05 PM, Boxing Day said:

  On 2/24/2010 at 7:38 PM, fox said:

it pisses me off when the artists decide to put said hidden track or tracks as #s 98 & 99 so you have to skip through all those useless tracks to get there. i paid you to listen to your music, you self important dope, would you just let me do it in peace?

 

Hahaha, Nine Inch Nails

precisely

  On 2/24/2010 at 7:06 PM, Brian Tregaskin said:

almost no one does that nowadays anyway

Sure it's a small number, but considering how un-clever it has been for so long now, I still notice it surprisingly often.

  On 2/24/2010 at 8:05 PM, Boxing Day said:

  On 2/24/2010 at 7:38 PM, fox said:

it pisses me off when the artists decide to put said hidden track or tracks as #s 98 & 99 so you have to skip through all those useless tracks to get there. i paid you to listen to your music, you self important dope, would you just let me do it in peace?

 

Hahaha, Nine Inch Nails

My version of Broken had the bonus tiny disc, luckily. But, Tool'sUndertow had 99 tracks I think. Early 90s though, both somewhat forgivable.

  On 2/24/2010 at 6:45 PM, beerwolf said:

I can't remember off the top of my head which album/ ep it was but I was really stoned once and not feeling to bright. I was drifting in semi-consciousness when one of those secret tracks (which I had comletely forgot about) starts up after about 20 minutes of silence. I totaly freaked out! LoL

I guess that's the solution. I need to start doing drugs again, so I can zone out and really get the full effect.

  On 2/24/2010 at 7:56 PM, fox said:

Locked grooves I get, hidden tracks not so much. Hidden tracks are clever once, after that their annoying.

I kind of like the pre-gap "hidden" track concept, where you have to rewind the actual CD. Autechre, 2 Many DJ's and UNKLE have all done it on albums. Still silly but more effective, much more like locked grooves.

  On 2/24/2010 at 8:05 PM, Boxing Day said:

  On 2/24/2010 at 7:38 PM, fox said:

it pisses me off when the artists decide to put said hidden track or tracks as #s 98 & 99 so you have to skip through all those useless tracks to get there. i paid you to listen to your music, you self important dope, would you just let me do it in peace?

 

Hahaha, Nine Inch Nails

Some band did it once where it started at #13 or some shit, the rest were silent 3 second snippets. Probably Korn. That kind of shit was so lame.

  On 2/24/2010 at 8:21 PM, joshuatxuk said:

  On 2/24/2010 at 7:56 PM, fox said:

Locked grooves I get, hidden tracks not so much. Hidden tracks are clever once, after that their annoying.

 

I kind of like the pre-gap "hidden" track concept, where you have to rewind the actual CD. Autechre, 2 Many DJ's and UNKLE have all done it on albums. Still silly but more effective, much more like locked grooves.

 

This kind of stuff I can appreciate a bit more, because it really is hidden. You're not going to notice it unless you've heard about it and make the effort to try to access it. I've personally never known of one or how to access it. But to me that's truly hidden, you can't really detect it through normal use as far as I know.

  On 2/24/2010 at 8:21 PM, joshuatxuk said:

  On 2/24/2010 at 7:56 PM, fox said:

Locked grooves I get, hidden tracks not so much. Hidden tracks are clever once, after that their annoying.

 

I kind of like the pre-gap "hidden" track concept, where you have to rewind the actual CD. Autechre, 2 Many DJ's and UNKLE have all done it on albums. Still silly but more effective, much more like locked grooves.

 

  On 2/24/2010 at 8:05 PM, Boxing Day said:

  On 2/24/2010 at 7:38 PM, fox said:

it pisses me off when the artists decide to put said hidden track or tracks as #s 98 & 99 so you have to skip through all those useless tracks to get there. i paid you to listen to your music, you self important dope, would you just let me do it in peace?

 

Hahaha, Nine Inch Nails

 

Some band did it once where it started at #13 or some shit, the rest were silent 3 second snippets. Probably Korn. That kind of shit was so lame.

Yeah .. Almost every Korn Album has hidden tracks .. You have to sit thru 20 minutes of silence to get to the shitty Hidden track .. Shitty bands thinking they are unique by doing this .. fuck them all

Hate them. either make them a part of your album or stick them on a b-side or online for free downloading or bin that shit.

  On 2/24/2010 at 9:10 PM, Braintree said:

This man looks guilty. Get him!

I simply enable the skip silence DSP on foobar2000. PROBLEM SOLVED!

  On 2/24/2010 at 8:19 PM, fox said:

  On 2/24/2010 at 8:05 PM, Boxing Day said:

  On 2/24/2010 at 7:38 PM, fox said:

it pisses me off when the artists decide to put said hidden track or tracks as #s 98 & 99 so you have to skip through all those useless tracks to get there. i paid you to listen to your music, you self important dope, would you just let me do it in peace?

 

Hahaha, Nine Inch Nails

 

precisely

LMAO Broken ftw back in the days of my obsessive NIN fannage before teh imdz on teh intornets... I remember it just playing and I was like "Why the fuck are there 99 tracks on this" when the disc spinned up... I shortly learned why :D

I remember that and seeing the Broken movie....

The vinyl pressings of Mr. Bungle's 'Disco Volante' have a secret track that occasionally occurs when you play track 3 - 'Carry Stress In the Jaw'. That portion of the vinyl is double-grooved, so that there is a chance that a secret song will play instead of the intended track. You simply have to keep setting the needle before the song's starting point and hope that it falls into the intended channel. I'd say that's a pretty cool implementation of the secret song. On the CD, the track is combined with the original composition in a way that sounds natural.

As for the content of the secret song: The band ended up recording it without bass player Trevor Dunn's knowledge. However, he somehow discovered it and decided to overdub his own vocals. As the album went to press Mike Patton was still unaware of Trevor's contribution and presumably didn't find out until the commercial release. The secret song starts at 4:40.

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