While I'm in grumpy old man mode - what do you call it when the last track on a CD has a long silent patch after the last listed song, followed by another, unlisted song?
What do you call it, and why do they do it? It was irritating enough when I just listened to the CD, but now, on my iPod, it's even worse. There I am on the train, and my iPod goes quiet. I dig it out of my pocket, elbowing my neighbour in the process, only to find that it's still playing. Bah!
Who came up with this stupid idea? I thing that I first came across it on The Black Crowes' Shake Your Money Maker in '89, but that probably isn't the first time it was done. Anyone know of an earlier occurrence?
And another thing. When I was a boy, R&B was the kind of music that Chuck Berry and The Fabulous Thunderbirds played. When did it start referring to that insipid ballady sub-soul come hip-hop shite that people call R&B these days?
Posted to Rants by Simon Brunning at January 05, 2005 04:33 PMIt's called a hidden track. I think Nine Inch Nails had 99 tracks on one CD (Broken?), where something like 7-97 were all empty. That was weird and annoying too. Though maybe I thought it was cool at the time. I remember an Information Society CD where they had a modem on the last track -- we managed to connect it to our computer by putting a phone up to the speaker, and it printed out a weird story. That was fun, but the track wasn't very fun to listen to. But those things never caught on so much as hidden tracks did. There must be a good hidden-track splitting program out there somewhere...
Posted by: Ian Bicking on January 5, 2005 05:53 PMRe R&B: I wondered the same thing. Sez Wikipedia:
"Rhythm and blues (or R & B) is a musical marketing term introduced in the United States in the late 1940s by Billboard magazine. It replaced the term race music, which was deemed offensive. To some extent, the kind of music it is attached to has changed to whatever form of contemporary music is popular with African-American pop musicians and audiences."
More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_and_blues
Posted by: Hans on January 5, 2005 06:25 PMAs for the hidden track, I also know at least one CD that uses track 0 (or something). To listen to it, you need to press rewind when the CD starts (at track 1).
Posted by: Hans on January 5, 2005 06:28 PMMust've been an eighties thing.
Earlier than 1989, though certainly not the first: Michelle Shocked, "Short sharp shocked", 1988. Her earlier "Texas Campfire Tapes" (recorded and released without her permission) had included a pretty, quiet, acoustic version of a song called "Fogtown". The last track on SSS had a hidden track, a version of Fogtown that was so different (a male vocalist, loud and fast electric instruments, etc.) that it took me quite some time before I even recognized that it was the same song.
Posted by: Doug L. on January 5, 2005 09:51 PMIt's the bogus bonus track, not normally on the listing, but maybe mentioned in a flash on the front. But as everyone gets it, it's not much of a bonus.
Perhaps it's time to start a petition to get bogus bonus tracks properly integrated into their albums.
Posted by: Stephen Newton on January 6, 2005 11:32 AMThe hidden track predates CDs, though without the annoying silence (which, I agree, is very annoying). Side 4 of London Calling had an unlisted track, but scratched into the vinyl (you do remember messages scratched into the run-out grooves, don't you?) was "Track 5 is the Train in Vain". And I don't suppose The Clash were the first to do it.
And it seems that you can't put HTML in this comment box.
Yeah, I've got "London Calling". I knew about the unlisted track, but I don't have the album on vinyl, si I didn't know about the message.
Anyway, it's not *unlisted* tracks I object to, it's the silences.
Posted by: Simon Brunning on January 6, 2005 05:02 PM