Hidden tracks on CDs, S&D, CoD

Anyone who used them before Nevermind deserves a nod, like Negativland on Escape From Noise (that *might* be the first but I wouldn't bet on it).

The bonus track on Will Oldham's "Guaperro/Lost Blues 2" is pretty neat. It's hidden before track 1, so to hear it, you've got to "rewind" the cd back before track 1....the clock on the cd player ends up cycling from -59 secs to zero.

Hidden tracks are really stupid. Also, I _hate_ it when the hidden track is easily the best track on the album -- see Beck's "Mutations." Cause when you listen to it you're like, "Damn, I've been deprived," and you know that millions of idiots probably will never hear it.

I've decided that an album just needs to be really good anymore to merit a hidden track. I mean, having one implies that (a) everything else on the album is good enough that you don't really need to hear this hidden item, and (b) you're so interested in this album that it's worth your time to poke around into its depths to discover its "hidden" secrets (especially when complicated track- maneuvering is necessary to find them).

But if both of those conditions are satisfied, well then wonderful. My dream would be for someone to tell me there's a 10-minute acoustic track hidden somewhere on Loveless.

Mostly pointless and rubbish and extremely annoying for kids like me who always put CDs on 'repeat' because YOU'RE WASTING MY TIME. Sometimes they're pretty good though - Postscript on Very by Pet Shop Boys springs to mind as that kind of makes sense as a hidden track what with Chris Lowe singing it and all and how it's quite a personal song.

That gap in the middle of The Wayward Bus/Distant Plastic Trees kind of makes sense too (hey, 4 minutes 33 seconds of silence - cool idea huh?)

On a couple of David Devant singles, there's a couple of stories about Cookie ("Cookie's father, who was considered locally to be something of a guru had in his possesion a small jar in which he kept what looked like a small brain - this we all knew was a ball of rubberised glue but somehow the label, which appeared to be in Latin enabled us to overlook this. I'm guessing it actually was Latin as it was well known that Cookie's father spent a lot of time thinking in Latin...Cookie turned to me and said 'You know my real father is a sailor, don't you?' but I didn't and I still don't to this day..." )

Isn't there one at the end of the first Kenickie album? That sucks (the hidden track not the album)

My dream would be for someone to tell me there's a 10-minute acoustic track hidden somewhere on Loveless.

You mean you haven't heard that yet? It's right after the T. Rex medley.

I remember hearing Nirvana talking about the 'Endless Nameless' track on Nevermind as a deliberate tactic to fuck-up CD players with multiple disc options and random play.

Beatles played around with the concept of a 'hidden' track - on St Pep.

I like the hidden track at the end of the first Kenickie album. It's just a goof, but I think it's funny.

Best hidden tracks: The Negro Problem's Post-Minstrel Syndrome has six bonus tracks. Five of which are just as good as anything on the album, in my opinion. Maybe better.

Worst: The US CD of The Wondermints' Bali. You get like eight minutes of ocean sounds and then... a beer commercial the band recorded. For Coors, I think.

Front 242 beat Nirvana to the punch just a few months before on "Tyranny For You" with that trick.... as far as a comparable- sized plain of silence goes...

But yes, Negativland did that too on "Escape From Noise"... but it was also on the vinyl, so it doesn't really count.

Montrose Avenue have a live cover version of CSN&Y's "Ohio" at the end of their Thirty Days Out album. The fact that it's a live song & a cover makes it distinct from the rest of the album so it kinda makes sense. As for the first....REM's "Green" possibly?

Crowded House's album Woodface features a hidden track,and that one predates Nevermind.The most fuckoff annoying use of secret songs I can think of is on Kyuss' ...And The Circus Leaves Town.Three minutes after the end of the last listed track you get a weird fifteen-second fragment of something,and then you have to wait another twenty minutes for the hidden song.The one on Kid A annoys me as well...one minute of silence after Motion Picture Soundtrack (is this amount intended to be significant?) and then fifty more seconds of something,and then more silence.I've never read any explanation for it.The cynical thing to say would be that the silence at the end of the CD is the wait for Kid A in microcosm (anticipating something and getting nothing) but I love the album,so...and there was an EP by an NZ band called Foamy Ed which has a secret song which is just a burp.Which brings to mind Ash's Sick Party...

The first hidden track would have been Her Majesty on Abbey Road although that was on vinyl and are we specifically talking cds?

My fave kind of hidden tracks aren't the ones where i have to ff for 10 minutes but the ones that you find if you wind back from the start. That way its truly not part of the album and it is genuinely hidden. If its at the end you know its there by simply looking at the time left on the last track.

Hidden CD tracks = not as good as locked grooves on vinyl. I'm sure Eagle-Eye Nick or someone can dig up the associated threads...

CD gimmicks
Locked Grooves C or D

I must admit enjoying my first discovery of that Ash hidden-sicking recording, in a horrified-amazement kind of way. "Wait, wait, I've got some more coming up..."

The one on Kid A annoys me as well...one minute of silence after Motion Picture Soundtrack (is this amount intended to be significant?) and then fifty more seconds of something,and then more silence.I've never read any explanation for it.The cynical thing to say would be that the silence at the end of the CD is the wait for Kid A in microcosm (anticipating something and getting nothing) but I love the album,so...

I love that bit... very beautiful, like a moment of resurrection.
The extra silence at the end is so that the next sound that you hear after that bit of music is not the whirring of your CD coming to a stop.

i wish more CDs did that. i hate that little CD player noise at the end

CorD: more or less classic.

S: The Sebadoh intro at the end of Curtis W. Pitts: Sub Pop Employee of the Month, Eurotrash Girl

D: That song at the end of Dookie and STP's Purple.

The Beatles also did something similar to Sgt. Pepper with "Her Majesty," off Abbey Road, even if it was announced on the cover. (And does "Train in Vain" count? Wasn't printed on cover etc. etc.?)

Fave good-bonus-on-bad-record: the hidden cut off Kool Keith's Matthew, on which he details Sony's mishandling of Black Elvis/Lost in Space; I'm sure the record would've flopped no matter how much/little it'd been promoted, but hey.

I agree with Nitsuh, I think a hidden track can only be justified by its relative brilliance to the rest of the album ... or through the polar opposite, a track which calls attention to the campy nature of its convention.

My favorite example being the Mr. Gerbik track on Dr. Octagonecologyst ...

" ... I would have been completely dead had it not been for the shark man."

"Shark man?"

yes, you have met the dangerous 208-year-old uncle of mr. gerbik,

"Train in Vain" wasn't printed on the cover, therefore = hidden track, therefore counts.

No one mentioned F#A#infinitewankery on the locked grooves thread? oh well. The end of track 2 on the kranky cd was such an item in its previous life. Favorite hidden track would by Portishead for shoving a bit of backward masking under layers of bass during the hidden song. The most annoying for myself is King Black Acid's song at the begining and end of Royal Subjects, its split in half, really quiet and sounds great if it were in one piece.

Melissa - thanks for clearing Kid A up.I thought the minute of silence was deliberate,and then the next bit was a journey into the hereafter.The silence just used to say to me,"Go on,beat that",and I'd always wanted a proper explanation.

The question must be asked - which secret song is the scariest?Not scary in and of itself so much as scary when it comes on and jolts you out of a stupor.Or scary even when you know it's going to come on and you anticipate it and it still makes you jump.

Best hidden track - got to be Pearl Jam, Lost Dogs after Bee Girl - the layne staley song. Don't understand about Beck's 'Diamond Bullocks'. I guess the US version is different? On my UK version it is track 12 with Runners Dial Zero track 13.