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90% CRAP. But, a damn nice touch when done right.

i've seen bonus tracks on an LP before - the last track goes into a loop at the end, so you have to lift the needle over the loop and onto the last, 'hidden', OMGOMGL@@K! bonus track. nice idea, slightly annoying though.

not crap, again, if it's done right. so many "bonus tracks" are just a waste of time... like the end of Mellow Gold... (eerrrr, ree-ee-uh, errr, ree-ee-uh, errr, -ree-ee-uh over and over) but when I first heard Endless Nameless, hearing that one track was as good as hearing the whole album for the first time. Maybe better. And I thought the bonus track at the end of the Offspring's Smash record was kinda cool. At least it was musical and not just some stupid noise loop.
Speaking of noise loops, anybody have Sgt. Peppers on vinyl? You know the sample of voices and high frequencies that loops after the end of A Day In The Life? On the vinyl it never stops because it was designed to keep knocking your needle back into that groove instead of hitting the run-off. It's on the CD, but it only goes like 5 times.

oh, and did you also know that on CDs it's possible to make a truly hidden track by putting music in the count-down before track 1?
You know how on live records if you watch the counter on your CD player before each song starts you'll see the track change but instead of counting up, the seconds go backwards during the pre-song banter? It's like that, but on the first track. So you never hear it unless you put in the CD and "rewind" it.
I've never actually seen a CD like this, because I never remember to check, but it is possible to do and I have to wonder if I do have any CDs like this.

sndo wrote:oh, and did you also know that on CDs it's possible to make a truly hidden track by putting music in the count-down before track 1?
You know how on live records if you watch the counter on your CD player before each song starts you'll see the track change but instead of counting up, the seconds go backwards during the pre-song banter? It's like that, but on the first track. So you never hear it unless you put in the CD and "rewind" it.
I've never actually seen a CD like this, because I never remember to check, but it is possible to do and I have to wonder if I do have any CDs like this.

i think a friend of mine said there's a course of empire cd that has a hidden track before track 1...

A friend of mine has a Stooges bootleg with a negative track. I always thought it'd be funny to put an entire album on one negative track. Make you rewind the whole goddamn CD to listen to it...

Willie Nelson had a negative track before track 1 on some CD that he released independantly in the '90s.

If I remember correctly, part of the track was an explination why he released an album independantly.

That guy's awesome.

The most recent Queens of the Stone Age supposedly has a negative track, an actual "Song for the Deaf" meaning low tone pulses and vibrations, so that a deaf person could "feel" the music.

Just like Mr. Holland's Opus.

This is what I heard (felt).

Hidden tracks are okay, but most of the time, there seems to be no real point to it. There's a negative track on the X-Files soundtrack, but that makes sense 'cause it's all so Area 51 etc.

The hidden track on the Nirvana album is nice because there's that long pause and then a bunch of fucking noise hopefully ruining your day. That's how I read it anyway.

There's a concentric groove hidden track on Mr. Bungle's Disco Volante vinyl - whether or not you hear it depends on where you place the needle. But the songs is about a secret song and it's kind of silly, so that one is okay, too.

I like the other examples because they seem to be either clever or actual bonus material that would otherwise staunch the flow of the album. Lately I've been noticing "bonus tracks" advertised on the back of new CDs. Where's the hunt? Where's the thrill of the chase? Why do most of these bands suck anyway?

The bonus tracks where you have to rewind track 1 are pretty cool. Bonus tracks are usually pretty neat, what bothers me is when you have to wait 45 seconds for a song to start because the band has X stupid quote from Y political crusade on the track. Once you've heard the quote a few times, it gets REALLY old.