What is "filler" on an album?

For example...

Canary off Exile in Guyville
Alone Down There off The Moon and Antarctica
Round and Round off Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Bellboy off Quadrophenia
The Other Window off 154

"We can Work it Out" isn't on Rubber Soul.

good songs but good singles? i can't be bothered with that debate actually...i don't necess. agree with the 'extreme popist definition' (maybe not even the best term for it) after all.

me on the 'is anyone still listening to albums' thread just now.

Oops - you're right. I think I've just heard the song too often.

To be distinguished from padding, where a perfectly respectably long album is tuned into a chocka CD using whatever's at hand etc...

The shit I skip.

Intros - I find I usually like these as scene-setting if pretentious - rather like extended credits sequences at the start of films can often be done very well. It can often seem all too self-important though which is off-putting.

Skits on rap albums - but some of them can be funny!

Brief interlude tracks - again a lot of these I like too, often more than the tracks they follow or precede.

Reprises - generally dud I reckon, few exceptions. Maybe a separate thread for this!

funny once or twice...

1)Get someone else in the band to write it. The Jam, possibly the kings of filler used Bruce Foxton in this key strategic role for the likes of 'London Traffic' and 'Don't Tell Them You're Sane'. He even wrote that rarest of breeds - a filler SINGLE! Yes, News Of the World of course.

2)Get someone else to sing it. Note DeeDee's, or was it Richie, vocals on the Ramones uber-filler Wart Hog. See also Ringo Starr, for whom 'Act Naturally' also obeyed rule 3 of filler...

3)Use the 'Country and Western' idiom. It might get a grin, and it show that you're, like, having fun. Can also be extended to include semi-jammed blues knock-offs and even jugband workouts. (See recent thread on this re : American 60's psych)

4)Another useful trick is to rewrite a hit. Or do such a generic mish-mash of all of your hits that the listener continues to tap his feet in the belief that it might actually have been a hit. Mr Robinson's Quango and It Could be You are splendid examples.

5)Disguising the filler. A true master of filler knows that adding a little something in the way of sound effects to spice it up a bit. London Traffic and Don't Tell Them You're Sane are garnished by wait for it....'traffic' noises and creaking doors/footsteps respectively. Nice! Roger McGuinn was fond of aircraft noises on several Byrds albums. See also many examples of 'noises of war' and gunfire.

6) As noted above - an instrumental is always good filler.

Filler connosieurs should look out for a copy of Jean Knight's "Mr Big Stuff" LP on Stax. It's a 10 tracker which I recall being 5 fast ones (the title track plus four barely-distinguishable retreads) alternating with 5 decidedly similar Southern soul slowies. It's pretty good.

I'm feeling guilty in case I've sleighted the LP now. If I have, I'm sorry.

Or yes, you ditch the rubbish. Either way, really.

I love filler. I love incidental.

I would define filler as "anything which is not an ego song". An ego song is a... song which is very aware of it's status as a SONG. A song with an ego. Filler = "Long Body" off "i", "Don't Stop", "Brainstorm Interlude", "The Big Ship", "Bunker Song", "No God Only Religion", all sorts of stuff.

Henry move to Devon! You will love albums again!

One reason why filler is good is that (apart from the 'lots of songs that sound the same' type) it provides *variety*. You sometimes get to hear another side of the band/artist that might not always be on display. The same applies to B-sides, but of course they are meant to be heard in isolation, not within an album, so can be more experimental.

The 'rarely/never performed live' rule is a good test of filler status.

To me filler MUST mean 'album filler'.

I mean the song's ego, not the band's.

does a song have an ego of it's own? isn't it just a reflection/expression of the artist's ego? even/especially if they're 'in character'?

haha, this is putting me in mind of when dance singles had seven oakenfold-vasquez-morales remixes on the b.

that's a good point too. i think i've always had a problem with the remix culture in this respect. the sense that you need different remixes for different crowds etc. - all seems v commercially orientated, maybe too much?

I could live quite happily with an album being 'all ego' or whatever, as in every track being a potential single. I don't think of interludes or skits as filler unless I find I dislike them based on how they sound/what they're doing.

A new form of album padding has emerged with streaming. More tracks, shorter tracks, longer album = more $$$. I've always thought of "filler" as something even the artist doesn't believe in, like NV said 12 years ago, songs where the work wasn't put in and the artist has abandoned them. Never liked using "filler" or "self-indulgent" w/r/t work I just don't like. "Filler" is more insidious and disingenuous than that: used to pad an album with 3 or 4 good singles, to max out CD capacity (remember those stickers on Metallica's Load?), and now, song fragments that structure an album for maximum streaming revenue.

Filler is that wilco track on ghost is born which was designed to emulate a migraine experience

No way that's the best song on the album

> A new form of album padding has emerged with streaming. More tracks, shorter tracks, longer album = more $$$.

Interesting

Not long into the CD era all sorts of artists were grappling with the form in interesting artistic or gimmicky ways: hidden songs or noises after silence or maybe 10 minutes of crickets... artwork on the disc becoming more common... pages of sometimes artist-penned written material in reissues... "Fingertips" by TMBG intended for shuffle play... Zaireeka seems like a cd-ready idea more than vinyl or cassette... that one Autechre cd where track 0 could be rewound to play on some players...

The idea of an artist engaging with streaming creatively seems almost like nonsense. Maybe classic 2 minute long album fade-ins are becoming less common with some artists because the user might just skip ahead. Maybe streaming will put even more pressure against hip hop skits because the last thing you'd want when playing a randomly generated radio is for the algorithm to select a track from your catalog that is a skit..? Probably skits always rank at the bottom of algorithms anyway as users always skip them / never put them in playlists or selectively play them.

Seems like the type of indie artist who would never have released a single without a b-side or some value for money (live tracks or remixes) now releases several singles per album that are just a song from the album, meant to somehow get on streaming playlists via appearing in new release lists or weekly playlists. In a sense this is a filler release.

Fall albums often had weird tracks where not much musical was happening of interest, but you weren't sure if it was filler or genius. WMC Blob 59 was surely genius; Papal Visit and Bug Day started to feel like filler, though you weren't sure. But then To Nkroachment: Yarbles and Shoulder Pads #2 and Guest Informant Excerpt and Win Fall C.D. seemed like pleasant or even clever restatements of the 'theme of the album' moments while definitely feeling like filler. In the 90s the filler tracks became increasingly bizarre - Crew Filth was hilarious, Light/Fireworks was an interesting 3-part filler mini-suite, Symbol Of Mordgan was a head-scratcher but then several more tracks on side 2 of MCR seemed like genuine 'lazy slapdash song' filler (Junk Man, $500 Bottle of Wine, another Monks cover). Cerebral Caustic and Light User Syndrome seemed to peter out with half-written filler - North West Fashion Show and Pine Leaves each work on their own, but seem to undercut each other by ending the album together; the last five tracks of LUS is a catalog of types of Fall filler, the pointlessly long late-period song lacking interesting lyrics or vocal/guitar/bass hooks, the boring cover version (the hit rate in this era was about 50%), the portentious but ultimately not very interesting spoken word interlude with minimal musical backing, the exasperating half-assed remix, and the parodic overly happy use of pre programmed synth demonstration settings to make a shitty song.

Neu! 2 is surely canonical here - Super 16, Hallo Excentrico etc literally added to the album to fill it up because they ran out of recording budget.

Deep Purple's 'Smoke on the Water' was basically put together because they didn't have enough material recorded for an album. They had the riff and the title and that was it. It was literally written as album filler and put together quickly.

I was a fool 12 years ago with my filler suggestions. Now that I am older and wiser I can tell you the quintessential filler track is just about anything on The Soft Parade by The Doors.

Beach Boys' 'Cassius Love Vs. Sonny WIlson' and 'Bull Session With The Big Daddy' are the ultimate filler tracks IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_NepDpBSqA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55q2aIoDF0U

kinda wondered about the Spotify thing - there's an entire cottage industry that's based around exploiting YouTube algorithms, I just figured no one would do it for music streaming since the artist cut is so low. then again if you search "Viper the Rapper" on Spotify, clearly that dude's got some sort of hustle going on...

Deep Purple's 'Smoke on the Water' was basically put together because they didn't have enough material recorded for an album.

Interesting side category. Songs that were recorded as filler yet became hits.

Todd Rundgren's "Bang on the Drum all Day" comes to mind

which must've been frustrating given how hard he was trying to write a hit for Utopia

you'll cowards don't even stream filler skits

Deep Purple's 'Smoke on the Water' was basically put together because they didn't have enough material recorded for an album.

Interesting side category. Songs that were recorded as filler yet became hits.

― kornrulez6969, Monday, February 26, 2018 10:17 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah it is, anyone have any other examples of this? didn't know this one turrican, v interesting

Viper the rapper's cover art is quite a thing

http://pigeonsandplanes.com/news/2014/12/viper-rapper

I SEEN A SKULL

might be fun to poll these. I'm going with this one

http://images.pigeonsandplanes.com/image/upload/hirm8prir10qh6r7gibu.jpg

disappointed that Kerosene Hat by Cracker doesn't have the 80+ silent hidden tracks on the spotify version like it did on the CD.

Re: Hits That Began As Filler

"You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" was written by Randy Bachman. In The Rolling Stone Record Guide, writer Dave Marsh called the song "a direct steal from The Who", but "an imaginative one."[2] The chords of the chorus riff are very similar to the ones used by The Who in their song "Baba O'Riley", and also, the stuttering vocal is reminiscent of "My Generation". Randy insists that the song was performed as a joke for his brother, Gary, who had a stutter, with no intention of sounding like "My Generation".[3] They only intended to record it once with the stutter and send the only recording to Gary.

Randy developed the song while recording BTO's third album, Not Fragile (1974). It began as an instrumental piece inspired by the rhythm guitar of Dave Mason. Randy says "it was basically just an instrumental and I was fooling around... I wrote the lyrics, out of the blue, and stuttered them through." The band typically used the song as a "work track" in the studio to get the amplifiers and microphones set properly.[4]

But when winding up production for the album, Charlie Fach of Mercury Records said the eight tracks they had lacked the "magic" that would make a hit single. Some band members asked Randy, "what about the work track?" Randy reluctantly mentioned that he had this ninth song, but didn't intend to use it on a record. He said, "We have this one song, but it's a joke. I'm laughing at the end. I sang it on the first take. It's sharp, it's flat, I'm stuttering to do this thing for my brother."[3]

Fach asked to hear it, and they played the recording for him. Fach smiled and said "That's the track. It's got a brightness to it. It kind of floats a foot higher than the other songs when you listen to it."[3]

Bachman agreed to rearrange the album sequence so the song could be added, but only if he could re-record the vocals first, without the stutter. Fach agreed, but Bachman says "I tried to sing it normal, but I sounded like Frank Sinatra. It didn't fit." Fach said to leave it as it was, with the stutter.[3]

A new form of album padding has emerged with streaming. More tracks, shorter tracks, longer album = more $$$.

This is basically the reason Soft Machine Volume Two has 17 tracks when really it has just 4, they were told that they would get more publishing money this way IIRC, so subdivided their songs. Think this probably didn't work out or else everyone would have done it. Of course none of the actual music is in any way filler.

in the indie rock world, new Frankie Cosmos record has 18 songs, but isn't a double record afaik. I saw them last May and all of their songs were 2 minutes or under

xp I think a lot of prog groups did this - as I remember you needed at least 10 songs to get the 'maximum' amount of royalties, which is why In the Court has all those weird subsections and "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" is broken up into 10 pieces. ELP's "Tarkus" was sort of like this as well, though at least on that one you could easily figure out what the different pieces were (ditto for "Supper's Ready"). It's kind of funny to see modern prog groups emulate this, given why it was done in the first place.

the 'more tracks, shorter tracks, longer album = more $$$' hypothesis is... i don't doubt that it is widely believed within the industry, or that such belief has had an impact on strategy and product itself, but it's far from proven in actual practice. it's not often mentioned when this issue is discussed, but several long releases by well established artists within the streaming ecosystem fizzled out rather quickly. and several of the biggest streaming smashes in recent history had fairly lean tracklistings.

my inkling is that the effect of a longer album w/ shorter tracks, whatever the size, would mostly be concentrated on the first week of the release cycle, when the most devoted fans will be listening (and will listen all the way through and/or repeatedly regardless of the release's length).

again tho, labels do seem to be a&r'ing some projects as if they believe the hypothesis is basically clear-cut fact. (chris brown's latest release -- which, by the way, is just doing 'okay', despite several radio hits being on it -- is the most obvious example.) and that is probably going to be bad for albums from an artistic standpoint.

A lot of the "Paranoid" album was written around the time of our first album, Black Sabbath. We recorded the whole thing in about 2 or 3 days, live in the studio. The song "Paranoid" was written as an afterthought. We basically needed a 3 minute filler for the album, and Tony came up with the riff. I quickly did the lyrics, and Ozzy was reading them as he was singing.

xp I think a lot of prog groups did this - as I remember you needed at least 10 songs to get the 'maximum' amount of royalties, which is why In the Court has all those weird subsections and "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" is broken up into 10 pieces. ELP's "Tarkus" was sort of like this as well, though at least on that one you could easily figure out what the different pieces were (ditto for "Supper's Ready"). It's kind of funny to see modern prog groups emulate this, given why it was done in the first place.

OTM.

This explains why Shine On Your Crazy Diamond was broken up in to all those sections, whereas in the CD era it's just 1 and 2

It was Fripp who admitted this first with regard to "In the Court of the CK" - also it looks impressive on the album cover, like you're all serious musicians and not pop garbage.

Aphex did this a lot with his tossed off remixes. Like devils haircut

re: prog groups - this happened to The Mars Volta in 2005 with Frances the Mute. that album had 5 songs, ending with the 32 minute Cassandra Gemini. they were on Universal and were told they would only get paid for an EP if the CD had only 5 tracks, so they cut up Cassandra Gemini into 8 or 9 arbitrary sections.

re: more songs, shorter songs - i think it's also a thing of having more tracks to potentially show up in playlists & on shuffle that motivates this as well

Interesting side category. Songs that were recorded as filler yet became hits.
Push - Universal Nation (one of the all time best selling dance 12”s) was apparently meant to be a B-side for his The Blackmaster project.

Blue Monday fits the 'songs recorded as filler yet became hits'.

I remember working at Roadrunner Records when Machine Head turned in an album that only had seven songs, and getting a whole bunch of shit for it from the label. They got around the "not enough tracks for an album" problem by simultaneously releasing a deluxe edition that had three bonus tracks and a DVD.

Here Comes Your Man? don't know if it was recorded as filler but they didn't like the song & iirc didn't play it live much when Doolittle came out

Steam's "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" was written as a B-side for a string of singles Gary DeCarlo had recorded that the label wanted to release....and recorded in one take, sloppily cobbled together.

of course "Steam" wasn't a real band either

What are some genuine (enough) examples of 60s 'filler'. By this I mean joke songs, non-musical things etc. that seem to be there primarily to buff out the track list. I'm thinking of:

The Beach Boys - Cassius Love vs Sonny Wilson (Shut Down Volume 2), Denny's Drums (Shut Down Volume 2), Our Favorite Recording Sessions (All Summer Long), Bull Session with the Big Daddy (Today), arguably the last two tracks on Summer Days (And Summer Nights)

The Monkees - Buff 6 (Headquarters), Zilch (Headquarters)

The Animals - Clapping (Animalisms)

I guess to me what I'm after mostly makes sense in the era before rock albums become rock albums blah blah yada yada and little vignettes like these begin to present more as artistic wee interludes in the greater piece.

I'm tempted to say Cobwebs and Strange counts in theory but I suppose not really, as business negotiations were behind each member contributing at least two tracks (even if Roger only ended up contributing one).

any track where MC Ren gets eight bars or more

xp he still managed to buy a Volvo P1800 sports car with the money (£500 or £7,786.74 adjusted for inflation)

yeah tons of examples of this on mid 60s albums - felt like there was a pattern of writing a hit, not having much other material to record, then banging out an album full of covers and rewrites of the hit song over a long weekend. "Wooly Bully" is a good example of this. the first Kinks album too.

Yeah I thought half-assed covers were the quintessential album filler pre-album as statement.

thought this revive was going to be about Beyonce

THe first three UK release Stones albumes may not have a lot of filler but they are mostly the singles plus a bunch of covers.

albumes

Today I'm posting to ILX from the 15th century.

One of my favorite filler moments on a '60s album is on The Best of Sir Douglas Quintet (actually their first album, albeit assembled without the band's input) which features two different versions of the same song, "You're Out Walking The Streets," plus a third song, "We'll Take Our Last Walk Tonight," that's basically about the same thing (walking around at night).

The funny thing is that, as subsequent reissues have shown, the band had more than enough quality material in the can that they could have replaced all three of those songs with better stuff.

The Byrds - 2-4-2 Foxtrot (The Lear Jet Song)

does anybody remember the song "Blessed" from Christina Aguilera's first album? No?

cos that nothing of a song is my definition of filler. it's professionally done - it's sleek, it's pleasant to the ears, and is devoid of anything memorable whatsoever. It's not terrible. It's inconsequential. if the album was of sufficient length already and someone asked label suits "can we add this to the album", they'd say 'why, it adds nothing'.

I guess it was better than the days when filler was mostly the 757th cover version of a song with nothing interesting added to the interpretation.