Deeply inconvenient (for the audience) artistic choices that aren't necessarily gimmicks

Record collectors run into this all the time with un-renderable/un-pronounceable titles, etc... and bookshops are forever bemoaning where to file weirdly-sized books but it feels like movies are a lot more constrained with things like guild rules that prevent you from releasing a movie unsullied by credits, for example. I remembered reading David Lynch was adamant about not putting in chapters for DVD releases because he wanted you to watch from beginning to end in one go.

What's the most inconvenient thing you've enjoyed?

The Melvins' Lysol is a six-track album that's formatted as a single track on CD. When I interviewed them for The Wire, Buzz Osborne told me, “When we were doing it, we were thinking, ‘Everyone’s going to skip this first song, because it’s so long. I don’t think that’s fair to the song, so we’re not IDing it.’ And that’s my favorite song on the record. They have to listen to it now, or fast forward through it. Or they have to buy the vinyl, which nobody’s gonna do.”

Prince beat em to it with Lovesexy

maybe Von Stroheim's original 8 hour cut of Greed.. but I never seen it, and not many have

https://www.discogs.com/master/360467-Pescado-Rabioso-Artaud

Titled after french poet Antonin Artaud, this album is Luis Alberto Spinetta's second solo effort, but ended up being credited to Pescado Rabioso.

The original LP is notorious for its amorphous sleeve, an irregular octagon, which made it hard to keep in regular shelves and forced several retailers to cut off its edges or simply refuse to stock it. Most of the later editions used regular sleeves picturing the original shape on a white background, or simply presented the colors in regular shape.

Not deeply inconvenient, but the long end-credits opening of Tár.

Was just coming to mention Prince.

Also, the comedy CD label Uproar release a bunch of stand-up CDs as single tracks.

I still haven't played my copy of Actress's AZD album that came in a sealed foil wrap because i don't want to damage the packaging

(have played it on streaming though)

there are some much better examples though in classical music where some pieces require deeply inconvenient positioning of the players to create a spatial arrangement of sounds. don't ask me for examples though because i'm tired as shit and brain's not working. Stockhausen's Helicopter String Quartet is obviously an extreme version of this though...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13D1YY_BvWU

If I enjoyed The Flaming Lips I’m sure I would have found Zaireeka deeply inconvenient.

The Zaireeka *vinyl* box is even more deeply inconvenient

Really funny that its like a decade-old Record Store Day colored vinyl 4LP box set from an incredibly popular major label band and you can cop it for less than $40

there was a fad for reverse-groove vinyl years ago (from the inside>out), but that's definitely a gimmick

there's pieces with super long durations, like Satie's Vexations that lasts for a day and a half or something. What was that one that goes on for several years?

My friend does an annual 24 hour free improv gig that i've been to that a couple of times. But as a listener you kind of drop in and out of these things, you just accept that you cannot physically hear the whole thing, and that's okay

there was a fad for reverse-groove vinyl years ago (from the inside>out), but that's definitely a gimmick

I used to own a Monty Python LP that had two sets of grooves on the second side, so two different collections of material would play depending on where/how you put the needle down.

https://www.discogs.com/master/58504-Monty-Python-The-Monty-Python-Matching-Tie-And-Handkerchief

there was an early form of stereo vinyl where there were actually two needles in the cartridge, R/L

John Cage calling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Slow_as_Possible?wprov=sfti1#

I used to own a Monty Python LP that had two sets of grooves on the second side, so two different collections of material would play depending on where/how you put the needle down.

I have a De La Soul record that does this as well, advertised as a 3-sided single

my mum had a 7" record with commentary of a horse race and it had four different winners which it could skip to at the end, this was in the late 60s so some amazing technology afaic

There was the Clue movie with different endings depending on which theater you saw it in

https://i.discogs.com/FFz4zsOcPhrv8VSV8bynQ__2ww8j1AFLC9r9RdDRFjQ/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:405/w:400/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTc5Nzcx/LTExMDc1MjYwMzMu/anBn.jpeg

Gallagher or Gwar

Probably more inconvenient for the theaters than the willing audience members

Gallagher = GIMMICK

see also: GG Allin

Julio Cortázar doesn't make it easy for readers of Hopscotch:

An author's note suggests that the book would best be read in one of two possible ways: either progressively from chapters 1 to 56, with all subsequent "expendable chapters" being excluded, or by "hopscotching" through the entire set of 155 chapters according to a "Table of Instructions" designated by the author. Chapter 55 is left out all together in this second method, and the book would end with a recursive loop, as the reader is potentially left to "hopscotch" back and forth between chapters 58 and 131 infinitely.

There was the Clue movie with different endings depending on which theater you saw it in

iirc this was the inspiration for that eno documentary.

The CapriSun juice “box” is a totally classic design, imo, but getting that straw in there is not that easy.

100 Years (Rodriguez, 2115?)

I love him, but the Building Stories box set from Chris Ware is really trick. Same to the gigantic ass bio he has

Art pop-up books are a bit like that I guess. Tristram Shandy is also a good call, with all the visual stuff on it. This edition is really cool, I had it for a while https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9524501-the-life-and-opinions-of-tristram-shandy-gentleman

I have a Brazilian edition of Bartleby that is fully printed without trimming the booklets, and you need a thingy to rip them apart (that would come with the edition) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/731686.Bartleby_o_Escriv_o_Uma_hist_ria_de_Wall_Street

The Flicker, by Tony Conrad – a film that can only exist when the reel is act. being played https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flicker and also will cause side effects easily

DJ HVAD did a 24 hour concert a couple of years ago, in an underground art gallery at an abandoned waterworks. This year he released the entire thing on vinyl.

re: helicopters I wonder if anyone's tried to make the helicopter blades produce a usable variable pitch depending on how fast it spins though I imagine playing any kind of coherent piece would get you really airsick!

The original issue of ‘The Return of the Durutti Column’ with the sandpaper sleeve. Destroying any albums placed next to it and no doubt does do the record itself any good.

carroline kabels "The honkies" did the same trick - i carelessly let that lp destroy the cover of a dog faced hermans lp :-/

and there was also monotract's "blaggout" - a cd in a cardboard digipack with sand and broken glass glued to it haha

the Feederz - Ever Feel Like Killing Your Boss did that sandpaper thing as well

Mark Danielewski's books, especially Only Revolutions, which is told from two perspectives in opposite directions, so you flip it over to get from one narrative to the other.

House Of Leaves also has lots of fun with text layout, but is more varied in how it does it.

*caroline kraabel

The original issue of ‘The Return of the Durutti Column’ with the sandpaper sleeve. Destroying any albums placed next to it and no doubt does do the record itself any good.

― Dan Worsley

This was my very first thought, but I feel like it IS solely a gimmick.

The citing of experimental works in this thread is interesting - is art-for-art's sake always a gimmick or does it do something more? Expansion of horizons, investigations into communication, pushing the limits of how we experience art/the world/ourselves? Obv as a wanky avant-gardiste I think it's deeply important, but I also enjoy novelty-for-novelty's-sake so I don't necessarily think there's anything morally/artistically wrong with just doing it for the lols.

good thread concept!

architecture is chockablock with these. producing the most convenient, seamless experience is a kind of professional responsibility to the client (or social responsibility to the end users)... and yet, if pursued exclusively, efficiency/convenience yields an impoverished, unsatisfying environment/existence. people want to stop and smell the roses. so pretty much every great building, i think, involves some kind of friction.

but you do have cases where there's a conscious art-for-art's sake rejection of convenience, as in Peter Eisenman's House VI, where the bed is sliced through by a window-slot in the floor, so that you get the message that use of the house is secondary to fulfilling the logic of its abstract formal system/grammar. the client wrote a book that both complained about the shortcomings, and praised the house as a source of "constant aesthetic delight."

Eisenman grudgingly permitted a handful of compromises, such as a bathroom

There is the infamous RRR-100 7” EP released by RRR Records: 100 cuts by 100 artists – 50 to a side – all of which are locked grooves, so you have to pick up the needle every time to hear the next one.

Usamaru Furuya’s Japan-only manga compilation Garden has one long story taking up half the pages that is deliberately sealed off from the rest of the book: you have to take a knife and cut it away to read several pages at a time, the idea being that you can stop at any point if the material upsets you (while also making you complicit if you choose to continue). As explained at the old Completely Futile blog:

In the book, the story is divided into groups of approximately sixteen pages apiece, each of which is sealed shut on the outside, making it impossible to browse the story casually, even after you've removed the plastic wrap. Preceding the story is a page on "How to read 'Emi-chan,'" advising readers to take an exacto knife (lacking one, I found a penknife to produce an acceptable if ragged result) and cut open the first group of sixteen pages: if these pages are too upsetting don't read any further; if not, then repeat the procedure with the second group, and so on. While the admonitory tone is partly tongue-in-cheek, "Emi-chan" is indeed horrific, and some of the images are very rough.

Kamasi Washington's Heaven and Earth album had an additional secret LP embedded inside, you had to slice open the packaging to get at it, iirc it wasnt publicized

^^^ Not publicized, and not included in the advance promo download of the album sent to reviewers (ask me how I know!).

Aus band TISM released an ep sealed shut on all 4 sides forcing you to have to ruin the sleeve to play it.

I had an copy of Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space where you had to break the blister pack to get at the CD inside. Later the box was eaten by rats. Think I still have the CD.

Later the box was eaten by rats.

Wow, how did they pull that off?

There was a limited edition that had each track on a 3” CD each in its own blister compartment of a faux pill packet

Aus band TISM released an ep sealed shut on all 4 sides forcing you to have to ruin the sleeve to play it.

Additionally, this was a 7” single in a 12” sleeve.

Both are totally gimmicks though.

also lol at Lump

The Bioscleave House in East Hampton, NY was designed and built to counter the physical and mental effects of aging, featuring numerous "obstacles" geared to insure that the occupant is always alert and on their game.

Exhibit A: the Kitchen/Dining Room

https://i.imgur.com/ykcycNG.jpeg

wow, lol

as far as I can tell, spiritualized did not organise the rats

there was a fad for reverse-groove vinyl years ago (from the inside>out), but that's definitely a gimmick

― Andy the Grasshopper, Thursday, November 6, 2025 2:58 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Funny, I was just thinking about the Dropdead record that did this since they played a few blocks away last night— at the time, being 14, I thought it was brilliant, and loved the wall of noisy hiss that resulted on the last track of the first side as a result of the second side being reverse-groove. I don't think it's always a gimmick— it actually sort of worked with the music here, even tho it was inconvenient.

(I missed the show last night, too tired after a long day of touching rocks in the woods)

The original issue of ‘The Return of the Durutti Column’ with the sandpaper sleeve.

Apparantly this was considered by PiL for what would become Metal Box... but they went for something differently inconvenient:

The album's lack of accessibility extended to the discs themselves. Packed tightly inside the canister and separated by paper sheets, they were difficult to remove, and were prone to being nicked and scratched in the process. Since each side only contained about ten minutes of music, the listener was required to frequently change sides to hear the complete album.[23]

Hidden tracks on CDs played havoc with CD jukeboxes in the '90s. I was in a bar once where someone played Nirvana's "Something in the Way" on the jukebox (a dubious choice for a bar track to begin with), and then it went through the 10 minutes of silence before suddenly "Endless Nameless" came on and sent the bar staff scrambling to turn it off. My guess is someone did that on purpose as a troll move. Problem solved now by streaming jukeboxes, obviously.

One of my college friends used to put like three plays of "Maria" from West Side Story on, then something else, then another three or four "Marias". Then he'd leave.

Oh man i laughed hard at that... the genius of "then something else, then another three or four"

one could certainly argue that it (or the author's entire career) was a gimmick, but: the endnotes in 'infinite jest'

some of the best material in the book is there, and it was a deliberate choice to present it in such a difficult fashion

Yeah and flipping back and forth in that book was a chore.

DFW was a really gifted writer, maligned mostly by people who have never read a single word that he wrote.

I read IJ with two bookmarks, then started reading loads of nonfiction that way. One bookmark following the main text, another bookmark following my progress through the back matter. Life hack.

the genius of "then something else, then another three or four

Right because the whole cafe breathes a sigh of relief when something else comes on. But it is a false sense of relief.

The reason it needs to be "Maria" is that in the fade, the singer says "I'll never stop saying... Maria."

DFW was a really gifted writer, maligned mostly by people who have never read a single word that he wrote.

His gifts seem less and less apparent to me as time goes on. The "jokes" in IJ (funny names! wheelchair terrorists! a year named after a diaper!) are insanely labored and then pounded into the reader's skull with a hammer. Every good aspect of the book (everything to do with Don Gately) is balanced by a bunch of tripe. There's far too much sniggering-nerd-boy stuff in the book to make it a classic anything. Some of the essays in A Supposedly Fun Thing... and Consider The Lobster are interesting, but when he starts to consider Society And How We Live Now the pained earnestness reminds me of no one so much as our own treeship.

Well, he might not have been the best thinker in the world, but as a writer, a stylist, he was incredibly gifted. His ability to change voice, change style, mimic forms of discourse, was unparalleled in his generation.

Girl with Curious Hair is very close to perfect.

Dare anyone to write a three page story as good as “Incarnations of Burned Children.”

Also hard disagree with unperson about IJ, but then again that isn’t surprising since unperson and I rarely agree on aesthetic matters.

"Everything Is Green": perfect.

calmer chameleon (Ye Mad Puffin) at 5:52 16 Nov 25

One of my college friends used to put like three plays of "Maria" from West Side Story on, then something else, then another three or four "Marias". Then he'd leave.

Yes, and I have concluded that his story is a separate instance of a similar prank. Drawing from a common human well of juvenile ideas.

His gifts seem less and less apparent to me as time goes on.

Sure, parts of IJ have possibly worn thin/not aged well (although everything unperson mentioned, I still dig, and they don't seem labored either) but for my money The Pale King is the one to remember. some footnotes, which to me are easier to deal with than end notes

some of the best and worst pranks exist based on what songs are available on jukeboxes

I don't think it was Peter Frampton's intention for Frampton Comes Alive to ever be presented in full in a jukebox format, but the digital age had different ideas. Allowing the fourteen minute live version of Do You Feel Like We Do to be a jukebox selection is kind of insane.

i can also see end notes being annoying but try reading any 19th century novel (especially a translation) that has end notes and you'll flip back and forth for what seems like the most basic unimportant shit, or a basic definition of a word you already know the meaning of or an esoteric discussion of some obscure political moment. . . depending on the translator. and yet we never make fun of translators for doing this, they decide what's important and what's not, i dunno, dfw's voice is compelling enough that the end notes never bothered me

I still admire IJ with significant reservations, which is pretty much how I felt about it while reading it, and the endnotes — with their built-in awkwardness — are such an inherent part of the book that I can't imagine a version of it without them. I'm curious if digital versions of it make them clickable — which would make obvious sense, but would change the laborious experience of going back and forth. My sense was that DFW very much intended that physical experience.

Yes, my Nook edition had clickable end notes. Agree that it removed something from the experience.