Entertainment For Lively Minds
Secret Tracks - why they should be banned
Posted by slartybartfast on 3 September 2008 - 11:15pm.
Why do some artists still insist on putting 'secret' tracks on their album? Teddy Thompson on his latest offering has one. Not at the end of the album - oh no, but on track 11. All 18 minutes 35 seconds of it. Granted, I have the bonus edition from iTunes, so track 11 is probably meant to be the last track, but even if I'd bought this in a shop - I'd rip it as wavs or aif files, edit it down and strip that silence out.
oh and don't say it's because I choose to buy from iTunes. You'll all do it eventually if you don't already, if not iTunes then some other online service.
Does anyone else have any albums they've bought in the last couple of years with the 'secret' track ruining what was otherwise a good album?
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I don't think it ruins an album but...
It is blooming annoying to have a 10 minute track which consists of 4 minutes of song and 10 minutes of silence pop up at the end of an album or, worse, on shuffle. Grrrrr... Even more annoying is a 15 minute track with 4 minutes of song, 6 minutes of silence and then 5 minutes of actually quite good song which you simply can't be bothered to scroll through to find (Ms Gilmore, you know I'm talking to you! I'd happily drink until the bottle's gone but I can't be a**ed to hunt around to find the bottle).
You'd think that artists/record companies would have become wise to this in the iPod age. OK, first time this little device poopped up on a CD about 10 or 15 years ago we all thought, "Ha ha ha... how quaint and amusing..." but the novelty value is well and truly over!!!!!!!!!
I suppose that I could go through my iTunes and change the end time on the long run-off tracks or double rip and then adjust the start and end times of song+bonus tracks. But can I be bothered - and why should I? I'll refer you to the previous "can't be a**ed comment". Bah!
Oh, and while we're at it... record companies, on live albulms put the spoken intros to the songs ON THE START OF THE TRACK not on the end. It's blooming annoying when on shuflfe, say, "Ain't no love in the heart of the city" finished and Mr Coverdale does all his "Woo! Yeah! 'Ere's one you guys put into the charts for us..." schtick and it segues neatly into something by Joni Mitchell or St Ettienne or Imogen Heap or something!
Sigh! Rant over! Think I'll go and have a little lie down!
'Tis Said
that excessive use of the exclamation mark is a sign of an unsound mind...so the fact that I agree with you on all points is somewhat troubling.
What!!!!??!?!??!?!?!!?!!?!
My mind?!?!?!!?!? Unsound!!?!!?!?!?
You couldn't be more right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I particularly feel your pain on live albums
...all my Flanders and Swann albums do the same thing, there's a song, then a charming anecdote leading up to someone else's song!
wouldn't mind if the spoken intros were entirely separate tracks, but it makes no sense whatsoever to attach them to the previous track.
one day, when I've got some time on my hands, I'm going to get busy with an editing package and put the world to rights.
Secret tracks have always been pointless
Even before the advent of MP3s I thought they were irritating. There's absolutely nothing secret about them, it's just a way for a band to put a song on an album which is either a little too weird or a little too rubbish to put on as a normal track. Come on, if you want a song on the album, have the guts to do it properly, don't bury it under ten minutes of silence.
I can sort of understand that the first few 'secret' tracks may have had some novelty value but to continue doing it now is just annoying.
Coldplay
I know not many on here will have bought their new album, but they have two songs on one track on a couple of occasions. One of these 'extra' songs is the best on the album, but to access it you have to listen to the 1st song on the track. Very annoying!
Having said that, they end the album with the same keyboard sound as they start with, which is a neat trick.
"where we came in?"
"Isn't this"
The Wall, The Floyd
Nirvana and Ash.
The abomination "Endless Nameless" which appears after last track "Something In The Way" on the "Nevermind" album, there is no reason for that track to appear, bleeding awful.
More annoying though are the secret tracks that appear before track 1 (pause when track 1 starts and press rewind). There were a couple of tracks hidden on Ash "1977" album which i cannot now access on itunes to turn into mp3's. Anyone found a way of doing this?
The only way I can think of
Yeah those ones at the beginning are quite frustrating, there is also one at the start of "Think Tank" by Blur. It's called "Me, White Noise" and features Phil Daniels.
I can't access them on a pc either. The only way I can think of is to use an output from a cd player into your soundcard, queue up the start and record it as you might do streaming sound or when converting from vinyl. There are a number of programs available that can do this. Bit of a mess-on though.
I tend to edit out the silences if I'm putting something on my mp3 player using Adaptec Sound Editor. Recent examples are the first Magic Numbers album, and Travis's last one, The Boy With No Name (which featured 2 extra songs).
The Second Coming...
The song 20 minutes after Love Spreads...sounds like a cat having it's paws electrically tagged to a piano keyboard.
Still preferable to Daybreak.