Best hidden/bonus track?

Plenty of artists have included unlisted tracks on albums. This has become more common since the advent of CDs (since they offer so much more space to fill than LPs), and it's become fairly common among so-called "alternative" artists.

What are your favorite examples of this? They can be actual songs (such as "Endless Nameless," the hidden track at the end of *Nevermind*) or just joke tracks that the artist may have decided to add for fun.

Reno's comment about the little radio snippet at the end of the Buzzcocks' *A Different Kind of Tension* made me think of this one.

personally, i hate "hidden" tracks...

esp those that are embedded within another track!

but train in vain will probably get the most votes.

one guy kinda had the right idea...the hidden track on john cale's latest album is BEFORE the album! you have to hit play and rewind to find it...

errr, not that it's really worth finding.

thelonius monster's stormy weather cassette has an instrumental bonus track 'bourbon street,' or something like that.
xtc's drums and wires us version lacked a certain track, i think, 'life begins at the hop,' which is close to a bonus track.
i remember looking for 'bonus' messages written on the inner ring of records.

"hidden message on the inner rings of records"

Now THAT was fun!! Factory was always good for these, especially on Joy Division EPs that included gallows-humor references to Ian's hanging. I wondered (actually, I still wonder), who had time at the record plant to scratch in little words and chicken feet? How did this custom (if you could call it that) start and who did it first?

Both Libertines albums have ingenious hidden tracks that sort of sum up the respective albums. The debut has "Mockingbird", an end of the party kind of tune which ties into the hedonistic vibe of the album; the self titled second record has "France" which deals with being left alone romantically, but metaphorically seems to be suggesting the break-up of the bands relationship.

Hidden tracks are kinda silly, but it's the space BEFORE the hidden tracks that really blows.

My vote: "Eurotrash Girl" by Cracker, numbered track 69 I think, and that certain band's best song.

I was partial to "the Lost Hawaiians" on Adam & the Ants PRINCE CHARMING, which was also the subject of one of Carmefina's vinyl inner ring messages.

I don't know if it was hidden or just untitled, but I've always thought that "Untitled" on REM's GREEN was the best song on that album.

I also like on the end of Sabulon Glitz's one album, they buried a twenty minute or so interview with some old man about UFOs from some sort of Art Bell type radio show. He talks about meeting an alien named Valient Thorr.

A friend of mine was convinced that her house was haunted because one day she was doing housework and was playing a disc (don't know what, but in her case most likely the Barenaked Ladies or Guster). The disc ended and she didn't bother changing it, then 20 minutes later a song she'd never heard before played and then nothing else. She got so freaked she left the house and went to her mom's for a while. She'd never heard of hidden tracks.

As far as bonus tracks go, the alternate version of "Marquee Moon" on the recent cd reissue of MARQUEE MOON is pretty interesting & instructive - it's good, but doesn't measure up to the original. Which just makes it all the more terrifying to think about how supposedly Billy Ficca thought it was only a rehearsal when they recorded the official version - good lord, what if he'd decided he wanted to stop and start over halfway through?

i can remember as a young'un (i think in 1984) happily discovering the etched Hawaiian message on Prince Charming vinyl. i thought that was way cool. this was during a summer when i was being exposed to what at the time in my little circle was considered "cool" (adam and the ants, quadrophenia, and U2's war).

there is a hidden track on one of tmbg's cd's, placed before track 1 (was it factory showroom?, flood?)

i like the track at the very end of Jale's So Wound which comes on after a long pause, but i don't know anymore if it was listed or not.

does anyone remember something hidden way on the back end of super deluxe's "via satellite"?

and, my favorite is of course the hidden TP review of
the obscure yet brilliant "Loyals" sole eponymous recording.

The inner ring is known as the Take-out Band or the Matrix. Matrix messages can be inscribed when the artist visits the plant or by an engineer. It's the only way to verify some collectibles. Someone's older brother showed by the Crowley inscription on Zep 4 and I was hooked. SST had good ones.

Versus was one of the 1st bands to stick the hidden track as a rewind from the 1st track on "2 Cents Plus Tax" in 1999.

My favorite hidden/bonus. In 1967, the Stones released a double A-side 7" with "We Love You" & "Dandelion". They figured Brit DJs would play We Love You and that Dandelion would be the a-side in the US (correctly). But they did not want to choose, so, upon the advice of Lennon, the end of We Love You features a snippet of Dandelion and vice versa. Only on the 7" vinyl and only if you listen close.

Yes, I had often heard about such inscriptions...then a found an Unknown Pleasures Lp and was about to spin it when the light caught it just right, on the matrix was inscribed..."Im waiting for a guide..." wierd. I'd had the record for close to twenty years and never noticed it.
Anyways, I have this Brotherhood of Lizard CD that has cool stuff buried after like 14 minutes after the last track. I had been playing it up pretty loud one day while painting, the cd stopped on the last track and I came in to eat and didn't realize it was still counting off, so when it came on ...it was truly a wtf! I had no idea they could do that!

Wasn't there an engineer who called himself Quacky Duck or something like that who left lots of inscribed messages on albums?

EDIT:
Did some quick research and was reminded it was Pecko Duck, a nickname for engineer George Peckham, who also went by the name of Porky.

Here's a brief discussion thread from another site about him:

[www.stevehoffman.tv]



Post Edited (08-14-05 22:21)

Not to mention Lock Grooves. I always liked these. Particularly the annoying ones employed by the likes of Butthole Surfers and acid-grunge/Albini posses.

So, check out this LP compilation of lock grooves.

Other Joy Division messages:
Transmission/Novelty [FAC 13.12]
[Side A] "I've seen the real atrocities"
[Side B] " Buried in the sand" (together, a verse from "Ice Age")
Also on both sides is "A porky prime cut"

Earcom 2 is not an "official" JD release - it is a strange 3-group compilation by Fast Product and where "Auto-Suggestion" and "From Safety to Where?" first saw the light of day - but it also has some messages:
[Side A] "Hey Peel kick out the jams"
[Side B] "I thought of bananas til you played it"
And that mysterious "porky" reference again.

Most macabre of all has got to be the original Still double-album. On the first side: "The chicken won't stop." Then little chicken feet follow each consecutive side until the fourth, where you can read "The chicken stops here." Although I haven't had this confirmed this has GOT to be an oblique reference to the memorable final scene in Werner Herzog's "Strozek," which legend has it, Ian finished watching only minutes before he hung himself.

Most annoying hidden track is the 20-minute ping-ponging noise track at the end of Hit to Death in the Future Head.

Example of SST matrix inscription
(Husker Du's metal circus):
'That Old Stainless Charity, If You Could See Me Now Shirley, Falling from Grace With the Goose. Howard Hughes: A wing, a prayer, see below.'

Course, leave it to Mark E. Smith to have good M.I.'s.
From 'Bend Sinister: Doomsday Payoff' -
"Doomsday Hoe-down on Auto"
"Mature Computer Dissection"

Surely the A-side was a prediction of the Ashlee Simspon debacle.



Post Edited (08-14-05 16:21)

Was it Devo or Heaven 17 who had "Better Luck Next Time, JH Jr." inscribed on the matrix of one of their albums in reference to John Hinkley Jr's attempted assassination of Reagan? I know it was one of those two, and then the other gave him songwriting credits for one track, but I don't remember which is which.

There was also Berlin's fairly notorious message on PLEASURE VICTIM, where they credited Terri Nunn with "Vocals and B.J.s" on the album sleeve, then on the matrix had written "Bad Jokes, you fool." Which pretty much summed up their whole career, actually - a cheap dirty joke at poor Terri's expense.

I wonder how many of us out there today donned a pair of spectacles or a magnifying glass and went through dozens of Lp's because of this string?
I only played one piece of vinyl the whole day...the records 'shades in bed' and I swear to yoos all, on the matrix it read "NO MESSAGES!" exactly as i printed it.

LPs on Factory and SST were the best places to look for matrix inscriptions.

This topic was covered in an issue of TP, back in the day. That article did send me scouring my record collection.

One surprise I found, back then, was on the compilation *Off the Bone* by The Cramps:

"What color panties are you wearing?"/"And how long have you been wearing them?"

I like the hidden track on Melt-Banana's "Charlie" album: if you start rewinding the CD at the very beginning (track 1, at 0:00), you get to hear them do a cover of the Damned's "Neat Neat Neat."

I also second Paganizer's Butthole Surfers' lock groove mention, particularly on the "Legless Eye" section of the "God's Favorite Dog" compilation. Freaked me out the first time I heard it.

i always appreciated the monty python vinyl that had two programs on one side depending on which groove your needle lit on

MAD Magazine's giveaway floppy vinyls in the late seventies often did the same thing. Blecchhh!

More on hidden tracks

She got a nose job
she got a nose job
and now it turns up
instead of hanging down
she got a nose job
she got a nose job
and now she's the prettiest girl in town

Potrzebie!

Further to the whole Butthole Surfers / Lock Groove thing, does anyone know if that band actually released a record on which each song was mastered at a different speed (i.e. track one was at 45 rpm, track two was at 33, track three was at 45 again etc.) so that you'd keep having to get up and change the settings on your turntable?

I beleive my Buttholian collection is complete (includes compilations and the rare 7" poodle-picture disc, etc.) but none have tracks mastered at different speeds. But I do recall somebody did that around that time.

I read that The Buttholian Collection will be on a special museum tour of the U.S. next year ... starting with the Museum of Modern Art in New York in March. Get your tickets while you can; this opportunity may not come again.

Paganizer wrote:

> I beleive my Buttholian collection is complete (includes
> compilations and the rare 7" poodle-picture disc, etc.) but
> none have tracks mastered at different speeds. But I do recall
> somebody did that around that time.
>


i know i've at least a couple records that are 33 on one side and 45 on the other, but i'll be danged if i can remember what they are right now.

The China Drum album "Goosefair" has a hidden rockin' version of "Wuthering Heights"

well educational subscripts aside,
that's a hulluva boner track on the LIBERTINES self sitled aborted hail mary.

'mockignbird' t'was...tis.