# I hate Hidden Tracks



## Scurrow (Feb 13, 2009)

It's 5am, I fell asleep too early and got up too early, so I would like to take this time to rant about something I can't stand.  HIDDEN TRACKSssssssss.

The first time I heard a hidden track was Green Day's Dookie album, I thought it was silly,innovative, funny.  The song wasn't that good, it was just silly.  Then there was Nirvana's "Endless Nameless".  Ok fine, it's a loud and angry song.  Records never had hidden tracks, so this is compact disc phenomenon.  I'm honestly sick of it, I'm sick of listening to an album and after 15 minutes of silence, all of sudden I'm shaken by some loud obnoxious song.  Melt Banana's Teeny Shiny does this to me every time in my car.  If you're going to record a song, and you don't think it's worthy enough to even be listed on the album, don't put it on track 99 - 15 minutes into the end of the album!  It's such a self-serving stupid thing to do and it ruins albums.  The ABSOLUTE worse is Tool's Undertow, which is sooooo ridiculous.  First of all, the album's hidden track is on track 69, so you have to wait for that shit.  The whole album is deliberately 69 minutes and 13 seconds, so that means they put well-organized crap at the end of the album.  The hidden track(s) are long, exasperating, and BORING.  I haven't listened to the album i a while because of this, but I remember someone talking, some long boring drum song, and cricket noises.  

The only reason I can think of is that these bands have a concert mentality and think of a hidden track as an "encore" where you get more for your money.  But honestly, I'd way rather buy an album where all the songs are listed and I can go to the track I want, rather than waiting 20 minutes for the album to end.  Fine, if the hidden track has it's own track, but why not just list it then?  Too much artsyness!


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## LizardKing (Feb 13, 2009)

Convert to mp3, chop off annoying bits, ????, profit.


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## Endless Humiliation (Feb 13, 2009)

You like Melt-Banana? Cool

I don't like hidden tracks only because they usually take too long to come on

Not everyone's a winner, but a few are

Now I'm all about pregap tracks


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## â„¢-Daley Leungsangnam475-â„¢ (Feb 13, 2009)

Queen had Hidden Tracks ... well one album had extra tracks

The Miracle: (Extra)
Hang On In There
Chinese Torture
The Invisible Man [12" LP Version]

Made In Heaven:
Yeah (4s long vocal from Action This Day - Hot Space)
Untitled Hidden Track (over 22 minutes of near silence ... with some vocals near the end)


i'm not really fond of hidden tracks myself


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## Aden (Feb 13, 2009)

Hidden tracks annoy me. I guess they wouldn't as much if they were ever good.


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## TakeWalker (Feb 13, 2009)

It's pretty easy to ignore them, remove blank tracks from the playlist, etc. Also, hidden tracks seem to be falling out of popularity, at least from what I can tell.


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## Equium (Feb 13, 2009)

There's a reason they're hidden. :lol:

One exception: Grandaddy did a cover of ELO's "Shangri-La" (or, an excerpt from) and stuck it on the end of Just Like The Fambly Cat. It was bloody brilliant. XD


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## Defender (Feb 13, 2009)

There's one good hidden track I've heard, and that's track 0 on They Might Be Giants' "Factory Showroom" album. You actually have to _rewind_ from the beginning of the first track to listen to it and it's a quality song about being stuck on a subway train forever.

But yeah those are pretty awful usually. I used to listen to Aimee Mann on a daily basis and the computer I was using then would seize up and run like a slide show during those silent gaps between the end of the last song and the beginning of the hidden track for some mysterious reason. One of my favorite tracks on her "I'm With Stupid" album was the one with that fucking gap so it was a heartbreaking affair to listen to.


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## Internet Police Chief (Feb 13, 2009)

I don't know what you all are talking about. I love hidden tracks. I think they add something special to the album when you finally find it. One of my favorite examples is Hating You For Christmas which was tagged onto the last song on Everclear's So Much For the Afterglow album. It's a fucking great song.



> I'm sick of listening to an album and after 15 minutes of silence, all of sudden I'm shaken by some loud obnoxious song.



You didn't notice the 15 minutes of absolute silence, and think something was wrong? Besides, after you hear it the first time shouldn't you _know_ it's there?


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## Scurrow (Feb 13, 2009)

John_Galt said:


> You like Melt-Banana? Cool
> 
> I don't like hidden tracks only because they usually take too long to come on
> 
> ...



Yeah, Melt Banana is Awesome.  Their hidden track just catches me off guard, and it's like 5 seconds of music.  Pregap tracks?  Like transitional stuff between tracks?  that's stuff is okay.


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## Scurrow (Feb 13, 2009)

Attorney At Lawl said:


> I don't know what you all are talking about. I love hidden tracks. I think they add something special to the album when you finally find it. One of my favorite examples is Hating You For Christmas which was tagged onto the last song on Everclear's So Much For the Afterglow album. It's a fucking great song.
> 
> 
> 
> You didn't notice the 15 minutes of absolute silence, and think something was wrong? Besides, after you hear it the first time shouldn't you _know_ it's there?



I figure "oh the albums is done.", or I'm in my car and get used to silence and forget I was listening to anything.   I don't bother listening again If i know there's some shitty hidden track that's going to fuck up my flow, KIIIID.


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## Endless Humiliation (Feb 14, 2009)

Scurrow said:


> Yeah, Melt Banana is Awesome.  Their hidden track just catches me off guard, and it's like 5 seconds of music.  Pregap tracks?  Like transitional stuff between tracks?  that's stuff is okay.



I want MxBx to play at my college I hope I can get them


Pregap tracks are tracks that exist before the actual first track, so you have to use a CD player to rewind from the very start of that track, like Defender was talking about for TMBG's _Factory Showroom_

Though there are transitional-type tracks that exist only at the end of a song, that you can't just rewind to get to. The only example I can come up with is the secret track that comes before Remote Control on the Beastie Boys' _Hello Nasty_


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## Scurrow (Feb 18, 2009)

John_Galt said:


> I want MxBx to play at my college I hope I can get them
> 
> 
> Pregap tracks are tracks that exist before the actual first track, so you have to use a CD player to rewind from the very start of that track, like Defender was talking about for TMBG's _Factory Showroom_
> ...




I totally didn't know about Factory Showroom track 0, and I've owned that cd for like 10 years!   

Melt Banana at your college!?  Where do you go?  That will be the best thing you can do for the student body.  I wonder how much their guarantee is, it's probably not that high.


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## Hanazawa (Feb 18, 2009)

my most hated hidden track is on Jagged Little Pill (yeah yeah, Alanis fan since I was 11), because it comes not only with that obnoxious silence gap but also after an unlisted "encore" playing of You Oughtta Know, which I hated for the longest time, so I'd always just stop the disc. when I discovered the hidden track years later it freaked me out.


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## Scurrow (Feb 27, 2009)

Hanazawa said:


> my most hated hidden track is on Jagged Little Pill (yeah yeah, Alanis fan since I was 11), because it comes not only with that obnoxious silence gap but also after an unlisted "encore" playing of You Oughtta Know, which I hated for the longest time, so I'd always just stop the disc. when I discovered the hidden track years later it freaked me out.



I know what you're talking about, it's like a Accopella  (I know I messed up that word, Ock-a-pella??) short song.  I have the tape cassette of that album, which makes it even worse.  I don't remember the encore version of that song, but it sounds obnoxious and overly artsy.


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## Endless Humiliation (Feb 27, 2009)

Scurrow said:


> Melt Banana at your college!?  Where do you go?  That will be the best thing you can do for the student body.  I wonder how much their guarantee is, it's probably not that high.



I go to school in WI, but hopefully they'll go on another US tour before 2012.


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## TakeWalker (Feb 27, 2009)

Scurrow said:


> Accopella  (I know I messed up that word, Ock-a-pella??)



_a capella_


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## Impasse (Mar 3, 2009)

Scurrow said:


> Records never had hidden tracks, so this is compact disc phenomenon.



I'm pretty sure that vinyl records had hidden tracks on occasion as well. The only example that comes to mind is the track "Her Majesty" by the Beatles tacked on the end of _Abbey Road_. The producer was told not to waste any material so he just spliced the extra tape onto the end of the reel.


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## ale (Apr 4, 2009)

Hidden tracks can be good.  Sometimes they get radio play too like Iron Maiden's hidden track on Edhunter, Futureal.  It's not the original with Blaze Bayley, but instead it's Bruce Dickinson. I think he does it much better too.  As for a wait, I just ripped it to my computer and it was listed as Track 15.


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