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In the field of recorded music, a 'hidden track' is a piece of music which has been placed on a Compact Disc, audio cassette, vinyl record or other recorded medium in such a way as to avoid detection by the casual listener. In some cases, the piece of music may simply have been left off the track listing, whilst in other cases more elaborate methods are used. In some rare cases a "hidden track" is actually the result of an error that occurred during the mastering stage of the record's production.
On unindexed media such as vinyl records, hidden tracks are generally additional tracks omitted from the liner notes. Alternately, a vinyl record may be double-grooved, with the second groove containing the hidden tracks. Notable examples of double-grooving are Monty Python's infamous "three-sided" Matching Tie and Handkerchief, Tool's ''Opiate'' EP[1] and Mr. Bungle's ''Disco Volante''.
On indexed media such as compact discs, double-grooving cannot be used, but there are additional methods of hiding tracks, such as:
★ Using an ordinary indexed track omitted from the song listing. "Train in Vain" on The Clash's ''London Calling'' is technically a hidden track because it does not appear on the track listing, although it was not intended to be such (see also Reasoning).[2][3][4]
★ Placing the song after another track (usually the last track on the album), following a long period of silence. For example, Nirvana's song "Endless, Nameless", was included as a hidden track in this way on their 1991 CD ''Nevermind''.[5][6] Although it was not the first hidden track to use this technique, this hidden song gained significant attention. This is the most common method used of placing a hidden track on a CD.
★ Placing the song in the pregap of the first indexed track, so that the CD must first be cued to the track, and then manually rewound; these are usually referred to as "Track 0".[7] The "downside" of this method is that the CD player will not play these tracks without manual intervention and some models (including computers) are unable to read this content. ''A full list of CDs using pregap can be found here.''
★ Using many short tracks of silence. This is sometimes done for comic effect, as in Michael Roe's ''The Boat Ashore'' (as in Row the Boat Ashore) and in Danzig's album,''Danzig IV''. After the twelfth song, the 66th track is a rather unnerving monotone chant, "Invocation." Cracker's ''Kerosene Hat'', which is track 99,[8] and most copies of Nine Inch Nails' ''Broken'', in which 91 one-second tracks of silence separate the 6 main tracks with the 2 hidden tracks.[9][10] Also, Bowling for Soup's ''Drunk Enough to Dance'', Track 28.[11]
★ Making the track playable only through the computer. An example would be Marilyn Manson's ''Mechanical Animals''. This album contains a hidden track only playable if you upload the album to a computer [12].
Often it is unclear whether a piece of music should be considered a hidden track. For example, "Her Majesty," which is preceded by fourteen seconds of silence, was originally unlisted on The Beatles' ''Abbey Road'' but is listed on current versions of the album.[13] This is allegedly the first instance of a hidden track (except that ''The Beatles'' has a hidden track after "Cry Baby Cry", referred to only as "Can You Take Me Back" (see "Cry Baby Cry" for more).
The song snippet at the end of ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' is considered by some to be a hidden track, by others to be noise not worthy of such a designation, and by others to be part of "A Day in the Life."[14]
As these tracks are left off the song list, they often have no formal or no publicly known song titles. When mentioned in music reviews, these tracks are usually referred to as "Untitled Track" or "Hidden Track." However, titles of hidden tracks often become known when they, before or after the fact, are released as the title track or B-side of singles, EPs, or promotional releases.
Examples include:
★ Cracker's "Eurotrash Girl," released in all aforementioned formats, originally as a B-side of the "Tucson" EP, then as a hidden track on ''Kerosene Hat'', then as a single and promotional single.[15]
★ "Endless, Nameless," the bonus track for Nirvana's ''Nevermind'', was also released as a B-side to "Come as You Are".[16]
★ Sometimes the song is a cover version and its title thus already known, such as Look at Your Game, Girl, originally by Charles Manson, on Guns N' Roses' ''"The Spaghetti Incident?"''.[17]
★ At other times, the name is inferred by external communication from the artist; for example, the untitled track on Alanis Morissette's 1995 album ''Jagged Little Pill'' is referred to as "Your House" when she performs live, and on her website's official biography[18]
★ The hidden track on The Thrills's album So Much for the City is named on the official sheet music as 'Everybodys gotta have plans'
On Sarah McLachlan's album "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy" there is a hidden track about three minutes after the last listed track. Before the hidden track plays, there is first the sound of guitars tuning up. A few seconds after that the hidden track plays. In this case it is an acoustic piano version of the song "Possession". Interestingly enough she often plays this version live, and also, if you purchase the sheet music folio for "Fumbling", both versions are included. The hidden track version of "Possession" is listed as "Piano Version Possession".
Most artists that decide to include a hidden track do so simply to surprise their fans. Sometimes, the tracks are hidden for specific reasons:
★ In some rare cases, it is used to put forbidden (by law) songs on live discs. An example is Ramones' ''Loco Live'' American version, which has the song "Carbona Not Glue" hidden after "Pet Cemetery" on track 17. It was originally recorded on their album Leave Home, but the makers of the spot remover Carbona, a registered trademark, objected. Therefore reference to the song was taken off of the album and cover.[19]
★ The aforementioned "Train in Vain" was left out of the track listing simply because it was added last-minute to the album; it was initially for a different compilation album.
★ The Beatles's "Her Majesty" from ''Abbey Road''. Although the piece was intended to be used as a bridge between "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam", it was cut from the line-up because Paul McCartney reportedly didn't like the placement of it. However, an engineer placed as the final track on the album after "The End", the official ending. The LP doesn't make note of it on the back of the sleeve, but in the 1983 reissue of the albums, "Her Majesty" is in the written playlist. It begins after eleven seconds of silence following "The End".[20]
★ The song Look at Your Game, Girl written by Charles Manson is not listed on ''"The Spaghetti Incident?"'' album of cover versions by Guns N' Roses to avoid controversy. For more see The Spaghetti Incident Controversy.
Sometimes hidden tracks have become quite popular and received heavy radio airplay, and occasionally climbed the charts.
★ Counting Crows' hidden cover of "Big Yellow Taxi" on ''Hard Candy''.[21]
★ Cracker's "Eurotrash Girl," an original, is one of their biggest radio hits despite being a hidden track from their ''Kerosene Hat'' album.
★ Collective Soul's song "She Said" was the hidden track on their fourth album ''Dosage'', but was later released on their greatest hits collection, ''7even Year Itch'', where it had its own track, rather than sharing a track with the last track. [22]
★ ''Skin (Sarabeth)'' by Rascal Flatts, which received so much success that the album was reissued with the track listed because so much confusion was caused when it was released as a single.[23]
★ Easter egg (virtual)
★ B-side
★ List of albums containing a hidden track
★ Backmasking
★ Bonus track
1. The Tool FAQ
2. Hidden Songs: The Clash, ''Train in Vain''
3. The Music Lover's Guide to Record Collecting, , Dave, Thompson, Backbeat Books, 2002,
4. The Greatest Songs Ever! "Train in Vain (Stand by Me)"
5. Nevermind, , Charles R., Cross, Music Sales Group, 2004,
6. Endless, Nameless
7. Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science, , Bob, Katz, Focal Press, 2002,
8. Hidden Songs: Cracker, ''Kerosene Hat (Demo)''
9. Hidden Songs: Nine Inch Nails ''Physical''
10. Hidden Songs: Nine Inch Nails, ''Suck''
11. Hidden Songs: Bowling for Soup, ''Belgium (Acoustic)''
12. Hidden Songs: Marilyn Manson ''Mechanical Animals''
13. Hidden Songs: The Beatles, ''Her Majesty''
14. Hidden Songs: The Beatles, ''Untitled''
15. "Kerosene Hat" is hot
16. Come As You Are Single
17. HiddenSongs.com -- Guns 'N' Roses - ""The Spaghetti Incident?""
18. Just Alanis Morrisette: Discography
19. Muze Product Notes (at Tower Records): Leaving Home
20. Her Majesty by the Beatles Songfacts
21. CIG to Starting a Band, , Mark, Bliesener, Alpha Books, 2004,
22. She Said by Collective Soul Songfacts
23. Piano Sheet Music - Rascal Flatts - Skin
★ Hidden Songs A user submitted database of hidden song listings.
| Contents |
| Methods |
| Titles |
| Reasoning |
| Notability |
| See also |
| References |
| External links |
Methods
On unindexed media such as vinyl records, hidden tracks are generally additional tracks omitted from the liner notes. Alternately, a vinyl record may be double-grooved, with the second groove containing the hidden tracks. Notable examples of double-grooving are Monty Python's infamous "three-sided" Matching Tie and Handkerchief, Tool's ''Opiate'' EP[1] and Mr. Bungle's ''Disco Volante''.
On indexed media such as compact discs, double-grooving cannot be used, but there are additional methods of hiding tracks, such as:
★ Using an ordinary indexed track omitted from the song listing. "Train in Vain" on The Clash's ''London Calling'' is technically a hidden track because it does not appear on the track listing, although it was not intended to be such (see also Reasoning).[2][3][4]
★ Placing the song after another track (usually the last track on the album), following a long period of silence. For example, Nirvana's song "Endless, Nameless", was included as a hidden track in this way on their 1991 CD ''Nevermind''.[5][6] Although it was not the first hidden track to use this technique, this hidden song gained significant attention. This is the most common method used of placing a hidden track on a CD.
★ Placing the song in the pregap of the first indexed track, so that the CD must first be cued to the track, and then manually rewound; these are usually referred to as "Track 0".[7] The "downside" of this method is that the CD player will not play these tracks without manual intervention and some models (including computers) are unable to read this content. ''A full list of CDs using pregap can be found here.''
★ Using many short tracks of silence. This is sometimes done for comic effect, as in Michael Roe's ''The Boat Ashore'' (as in Row the Boat Ashore) and in Danzig's album,''Danzig IV''. After the twelfth song, the 66th track is a rather unnerving monotone chant, "Invocation." Cracker's ''Kerosene Hat'', which is track 99,[8] and most copies of Nine Inch Nails' ''Broken'', in which 91 one-second tracks of silence separate the 6 main tracks with the 2 hidden tracks.[9][10] Also, Bowling for Soup's ''Drunk Enough to Dance'', Track 28.[11]
★ Making the track playable only through the computer. An example would be Marilyn Manson's ''Mechanical Animals''. This album contains a hidden track only playable if you upload the album to a computer [12].
Often it is unclear whether a piece of music should be considered a hidden track. For example, "Her Majesty," which is preceded by fourteen seconds of silence, was originally unlisted on The Beatles' ''Abbey Road'' but is listed on current versions of the album.[13] This is allegedly the first instance of a hidden track (except that ''The Beatles'' has a hidden track after "Cry Baby Cry", referred to only as "Can You Take Me Back" (see "Cry Baby Cry" for more).
The song snippet at the end of ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' is considered by some to be a hidden track, by others to be noise not worthy of such a designation, and by others to be part of "A Day in the Life."[14]
Titles
As these tracks are left off the song list, they often have no formal or no publicly known song titles. When mentioned in music reviews, these tracks are usually referred to as "Untitled Track" or "Hidden Track." However, titles of hidden tracks often become known when they, before or after the fact, are released as the title track or B-side of singles, EPs, or promotional releases.
Examples include:
★ Cracker's "Eurotrash Girl," released in all aforementioned formats, originally as a B-side of the "Tucson" EP, then as a hidden track on ''Kerosene Hat'', then as a single and promotional single.[15]
★ "Endless, Nameless," the bonus track for Nirvana's ''Nevermind'', was also released as a B-side to "Come as You Are".[16]
★ Sometimes the song is a cover version and its title thus already known, such as Look at Your Game, Girl, originally by Charles Manson, on Guns N' Roses' ''"The Spaghetti Incident?"''.[17]
★ At other times, the name is inferred by external communication from the artist; for example, the untitled track on Alanis Morissette's 1995 album ''Jagged Little Pill'' is referred to as "Your House" when she performs live, and on her website's official biography[18]
★ The hidden track on The Thrills's album So Much for the City is named on the official sheet music as 'Everybodys gotta have plans'
On Sarah McLachlan's album "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy" there is a hidden track about three minutes after the last listed track. Before the hidden track plays, there is first the sound of guitars tuning up. A few seconds after that the hidden track plays. In this case it is an acoustic piano version of the song "Possession". Interestingly enough she often plays this version live, and also, if you purchase the sheet music folio for "Fumbling", both versions are included. The hidden track version of "Possession" is listed as "Piano Version Possession".
Reasoning
Most artists that decide to include a hidden track do so simply to surprise their fans. Sometimes, the tracks are hidden for specific reasons:
★ In some rare cases, it is used to put forbidden (by law) songs on live discs. An example is Ramones' ''Loco Live'' American version, which has the song "Carbona Not Glue" hidden after "Pet Cemetery" on track 17. It was originally recorded on their album Leave Home, but the makers of the spot remover Carbona, a registered trademark, objected. Therefore reference to the song was taken off of the album and cover.[19]
★ The aforementioned "Train in Vain" was left out of the track listing simply because it was added last-minute to the album; it was initially for a different compilation album.
★ The Beatles's "Her Majesty" from ''Abbey Road''. Although the piece was intended to be used as a bridge between "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam", it was cut from the line-up because Paul McCartney reportedly didn't like the placement of it. However, an engineer placed as the final track on the album after "The End", the official ending. The LP doesn't make note of it on the back of the sleeve, but in the 1983 reissue of the albums, "Her Majesty" is in the written playlist. It begins after eleven seconds of silence following "The End".[20]
★ The song Look at Your Game, Girl written by Charles Manson is not listed on ''"The Spaghetti Incident?"'' album of cover versions by Guns N' Roses to avoid controversy. For more see The Spaghetti Incident Controversy.
Notability
Sometimes hidden tracks have become quite popular and received heavy radio airplay, and occasionally climbed the charts.
★ Counting Crows' hidden cover of "Big Yellow Taxi" on ''Hard Candy''.[21]
★ Cracker's "Eurotrash Girl," an original, is one of their biggest radio hits despite being a hidden track from their ''Kerosene Hat'' album.
★ Collective Soul's song "She Said" was the hidden track on their fourth album ''Dosage'', but was later released on their greatest hits collection, ''7even Year Itch'', where it had its own track, rather than sharing a track with the last track. [22]
★ ''Skin (Sarabeth)'' by Rascal Flatts, which received so much success that the album was reissued with the track listed because so much confusion was caused when it was released as a single.[23]
See also
★ Easter egg (virtual)
★ B-side
★ List of albums containing a hidden track
★ Backmasking
★ Bonus track
References
1. The Tool FAQ
2. Hidden Songs: The Clash, ''Train in Vain''
3. The Music Lover's Guide to Record Collecting, , Dave, Thompson, Backbeat Books, 2002,
4. The Greatest Songs Ever! "Train in Vain (Stand by Me)"
5. Nevermind, , Charles R., Cross, Music Sales Group, 2004,
6. Endless, Nameless
7. Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science, , Bob, Katz, Focal Press, 2002,
8. Hidden Songs: Cracker, ''Kerosene Hat (Demo)''
9. Hidden Songs: Nine Inch Nails ''Physical''
10. Hidden Songs: Nine Inch Nails, ''Suck''
11. Hidden Songs: Bowling for Soup, ''Belgium (Acoustic)''
12. Hidden Songs: Marilyn Manson ''Mechanical Animals''
13. Hidden Songs: The Beatles, ''Her Majesty''
14. Hidden Songs: The Beatles, ''Untitled''
15. "Kerosene Hat" is hot
16. Come As You Are Single
17. HiddenSongs.com -- Guns 'N' Roses - ""The Spaghetti Incident?""
18. Just Alanis Morrisette: Discography
19. Muze Product Notes (at Tower Records): Leaving Home
20. Her Majesty by the Beatles Songfacts
21. CIG to Starting a Band, , Mark, Bliesener, Alpha Books, 2004,
22. She Said by Collective Soul Songfacts
23. Piano Sheet Music - Rascal Flatts - Skin
External links
★ Hidden Songs A user submitted database of hidden song listings.
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psst.. try this: add to faves
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