Hidden track

In the field of recorded music, a hidden track (sometimes secret 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.

Methods

On unindexed media such as vinyl records, hidden tracks are generally additional tracks omitted from the liner notes. "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). 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 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:

• Placing the song after another track (usually, but not necessarily, 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, after 10 minutes of complete silence. 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. However, sometimes a hidden track will feature as part of another track in the middle of an album, as is the case with the song "Affliction" from AFI's album decemberunderground. Another example is Better Man by British rock band Oasis. The song lasts for roughly 5 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of complete silence, then a hidden instrumental called 'The Cage'.

• 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". 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. See Albums with songs hidden in the pregap.
• Using many short tracks of silence. On Danzig's album, Danzig IV, after the twelfth song, there are numerous blank tracks, until reaching the 66th track, the monotone chant, "Invocation.", or on Bowling for Soup's Drunk Enough to Dance, Track 28, 'Belgium'. This technique is also used in Marilyn Manson's Antichrist Superstar with track 99 playing a hidden song. HIM's debut album Greatest Love Songs Vol. 666 takes Danzig's technique one step further; not only is track 66 a hidden track, the total time of the entire album is 66 minutes and 6 seconds (66:06). Tool's album Undertow has a hidden song on track 69. Overkill's album WFO has a hidden song on track 98, which is actually a medley between Black Sabbath's Heaven and Hell and Judas Priest's The Ripper played by Overkill in a rehearsal.
• 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 the album is uploaded to a computer.

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. 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."

Reasoning

Most artists who 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.
• 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 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.
• "Weird Al" Yankovic's Bite Me was put on after ten minutes of silence to scare listeners who had forgotten to turn off the CD player.
• The 13th track on a record is sometimes "hidden" (unlisted), part of a long Western tradition of avoiding mention of the number.
• Including a track that was made popular from appearing in another medium may increase sales in current product; case in point being Lauryn Hill's "Can't Take My Eyes Off You," which charted in the US due to it's placement in the film Conspiracy Theory.

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.
• Cracker's "Eurotrash Girl," an original, was one of their biggest radio hits despite being a hidden track on Kerosene Hat.
• 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, as a self-contained track, rather than sharing a track with another song.
• Skin (Sarabeth) by Rascal Flatts, received so much success that the album was reissued with the track listed due to confusion caused when it was released as a single.
• Of the two hidden tracks on Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, one of them, the cover of "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" was nominated for a Grammy in 1999 in the category of "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance." It was the first time a hidden track was nominated for a Grammy.
• Pearl Jam's song "4/20/02," about the fellow friend and grunge singer Layne Staley's overdose, is titled with his estimated date of the Alice in Chains singer's death and begins exactly 4:20:02 after the conclusion of the song "Bee Girl." The song was not featured as a listed track on Pearl Jam's album Lost Dogs because Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder did not wish for it to be exploitative.
• My Chemical Romance's "Blood", the 14th track on the Black Parade Album (2006) begins at exactly 1:31

See also

• Easter egg (virtual)
• B-side
• List of albums containing a hidden track
• Backmasking
• Bonus track

References

External links

• Hidden Songs A user submitted database of hidden song listings.