Hidden tracks

[Trollheart]

Are you as pissed off with these as I am? I mean, what is the damned point? You get a track with a runtime of, say, 15 minutes, you think, great. Then the song is maybe 5 or 6 minutes, followed by 9 minutes of silence and then some fool playing piano or laughing! Why? What purpose do they serve? Could artists at least let us know that's how the track is composed? I listened to a song by a band called Gamma Ray today and I was really enjoying it, noted the runtime and it's 23 minutes. So I think great, going to love this. Then 7 minutes in it stops, and for the next god knows how long I'm listening to silence. Left it running, went upstairs, came back down to hear some scratchy voice croaking about we love rock and roll or something. Are these people drunk when they do these things? And if so, why should I have to pay for their antics? GAAAHHH! etc.

[Lisnaholic]

^ Wow ! That's a pretty extreme case: as to why a band would do it these days, I have no idea. Didn't the idea originate on a Beatles album, with a little snippet of sound on that "exit ramp" groove as the needle moved in to lift off from the record?

(I assume you're talking about a track on a cd ? Because on the internet (i.e. YouTube), I always assume that those kinds of thing are done so that you can't download a perfect, useful copy of the track - a kind of copyright protection technique.

By chance,I just came across a track which has a secret part, though in this case, there's only a minute of silence between the two parts. But even so, why do it? Why not label it up as a new track? In the end, the fans did the job that the artist didn't do: they called the second part "The Hidden Waltz" and on YouTube you can find it on its own if you so choose.

(Go to 4:35 if you just want to listen to the annoying silence - alternatively, to save yourself that trouble, just stare at your computer screen for one minute and you'll get the idea  )

[Trollheart]

Oh you would not believe it, Lisna! Yeah I'm talking about CDs, don't know about downloadable tracks or whatever. Listen to this Robbie Williams song. It's got literally 10 minutes of nothing and then if you wait you're "rewarded" with him reciting a poem wherein he tells his school teacher, who told him he would never amount to anything, to fuck off. Real mature, Robbie!

This one is a half-hour long and has TWO hidden tracks, if you have the patience!

My second-favourite band Marillion have one, which goes for 10 minutes, has 2 minutes silence and then runs into a jam for 7 minutes, but none of the YT examples include the "hidden track". Just a few examples.

[Lisnaholic]

Oh you would not believe it, Lisna! Yeah I'm talking about CDs, don't know about downloadable tracks or whatever. Listen to this Robbie Williams song. It's got literally 10 minutes of nothing and then if you wait you're "rewarded" with him reciting a poem wherein he tells his school teacher, who told him he would never amount to anything, to fuck off. Real mature, Robbie!

That's an interesting example, TH. The front end song was ok, but I can't escape the feeling that hidden tracks are kind of arrogant/inconsiderate on the part of the artist - like deliberately making the audience wait at a concert. Anyway, in this case I skipped some of the silence on the track, and agree with you: that poem down the back is terrible, imo too. It's not an attractive picture, is it? An artist nursing a petty grudge from his childhood and then hiding a spiteful "gottcha" like that on an album.
So, I'll give your other R Williams example a miss for the moment, thanks.

Here's a different kind of hidden track:-

The album's original LP edition is particularly notable in that it was mastered with two concentric grooves on side two, so that different material would be played depending on where the stylus was put down on the record's surface. For this reason it is sometimes referred to as a "three-sided" record. The cutting was carried out by George "Porky" Peckham, who became known for etching messages into runout grooves.

A friend of mine had this album, but alas I have no memory of how he or I reacted to the double-groove gimmick. I have a suspicion that we didn't play it much because it wasn't that funny.

[Trollheart]

Yeah I thought it was particularly nasty. I can understand, to a degree, wanting to say "look what you knew!" and wanting to get your own back, but really, the teacher is probably now in maybe his 60s or 70s (assuming he wasn't that young when Robbie went to school; it's not really the kind of comment you get from a young, hip teacher who wants to be friends with the kids) and while the chances are he would never even hear it, someone he knows might, and might pass it on. Williams has no way of knowing - or, probably, caring - what his teacher is doing now. He could have a debilitating disease, he could be on the street - hell, he could be dead. Was it really worth it, I wonder, for the tiny frisson of delight in telling what must be an old man now how wrong he was? And how could the teacher know anyway how he was going to turn out? You have Matt Groening laughing about how he used to get into trouble at school for drawing cartoons, but you don't see him writing a Simpsons episode where he gets back at his teachers. Man has too much class for that. Very petty, very vindictive, and in the end, very unfair. Also, surely no need for the expletive at the end?

[Lisnaholic]

You have Matt Groening laughing about how he used to get into trouble at school for drawing cartoons, but you don't see him writing a Simpsons episode where he gets back at his teachers. Man has too much class for that. Very petty, very vindictive, and in the end, very unfair. Also, surely no need for the expletive at the end?

^ Yes, that's a much more balanced response from Matt G. In fact, it's pretty normal for schoolkids to be lectured at by an older generation with fixed ideas about the army, the decent haircut, and the conventional route through higher education to a respectable job - and just as common for young adults to push back against that attitude. Lots of musical examples of that push-back, though off-hand, Floyd's "We don't need no education" is the only one that springs to mind.*

I don't think we need worry too much about Robbie William's teacher: the guy probably had years of students' rejecting his ideas (either tacitly or explicitly). My guess is that most teachers learn to shrug that stuff off, or opt into a different profession.

* ooh, The Beatles: "The teachers that taught me weren't cool..."
Or this angry exhortation from Captain Beefheart:  "Go ta school (repeat) just cain't (repeat) dropout (repeat)" That song was a total clarion call to the group of high-school rebels that I used to hang out with.

[Trollheart]

This song from Supertramp says it best I think.