This also reminded me that I have two other notable CDs (that I know of off the top of my head) with similarly hidden final tracks: Lyle Lovett's The Road To Ensenada ("The Girl In The Corner"—1.5 minutes after the "final" track) and John Cougar Mellencamp's Big Daddy ("Let It All Hang Out"—only 14 seconds after the "final" track). The Lovett album, while not listing the extra song on the back jewel case insert, does list the lyric for it in the main booklet.
I actually wouldn't mind the extra tracks not being listed if it wasn't for the much longer than usual silence leading up to each. If they're gonna put the songs on there like that, fine, but why play games by putting all that wait time in front of'em? Sure, you can try to skip the silence and search for the start of the extra tracks, but it's just annoying to have to do so. Today I decided to finally do something about it. I ripped the tracks from all three CDs and used my trusty ol' Creative WaveStudio software to remove the long separating silence, then explicitly bring the extra tracks out into the open by placing them as normally spaced final tracks.
That actually was the extremely easy part, though. Being anal about the little details of such things I naturally had to scan the back jewel case inserts so I could then add the now unhidden extra tracks to the listings as seamlessly as possible. Such endeavors can sometimes be a very tricky proposition depending on the nature of the graphic design, but in these three cases it really wasn't too bad since the text and artwork was reasonably simplistic. As is typical, each one presented its own unique (though not immediately apparent) challenges, but I'm quite pleased with the way they turned out. I can't say they're perfect, but they suit me and that's all that matters.
Click the thumbnails to vew the larger (but still extremely lo-res) images...
These are the kinds of personal projects I avoided when my scanner was not working properly due to my (unknown at the time) Norton troubles. Now that I have those issues figured out, I can once again decide on a whim to do these sorts of things which require quick off the cuff scans to get started.
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4 comments:
OMG!!!!!!!!
My so anal friend and buddy and pal! :-)
I knew you would somehow figure something tech out to solve your dilemna.
Here's what I do...learned from the second album of 30 Seconds to Mars. It has a 2 bonus tracks at the end, but between the CD and the bonus tracks is 12 minutes and 32 seconds of silence. In there, is a "Hidden Track". What I have to do is go to the first bonus track and rewind back 2 minutes, to the start of the hidden track. What a pain, but a great song and so worth the effort.
Their first CD has a hidden track, closer to what you experience with your CD's. Artists are a real pain sometimes... lol
Hi Angel! Happy Holidays!
Yes, as you say artists truly can be a pain sometimes!
I have a friend who doesn't like the concept of "Easter eggs" on DVDs saying that you shouldn't have hunt for secret stuff. Can't say I disagree with him.
I feel the same about these hidden CD tracks. I probably should have re-done them long ago even if I couldn't easily do the back insert scans to append the extra songs to the lists.
The Mellencamp one was the most straightforward implementation in that there was only fourteen seconds of silence before the bonus track would kick in. And those fourteen seconds were presented in the normal "countdown" mode between the end of the eleventh and last track listed and the start of the extra twelfth one. A longer than usual "countdown," but one I could mostly live with if I had to.
The Tractors bonus tune was also kind of straightforward in that the last listed track was really just one extremely long "normally clocked" track containing two songs. The only bad part was the two minutes of silence I had to wait through or haphazardly skip past.
The Lovett one, though, was the weirdest... It has thirteen tracks, but the thirteenth has a time duration of zero seconds so it's not really there!
Instead, rather than being number thirteen the bonus track was in reality shoved in with number twelve. When playing, the twelfth track would end at 4:10 and then the "countdown" clock would start ticking down, but it would show -5:59, -5:58, -5:57, etc... The first ninety seconds of that was silence and then the bonus track would start playing at -4:29 and continue until 0:00 at which point the CD would end.
I'm also sure I recall trying to skip on by that initial countdown silence when first playing the CD way back when, but the player in use at the time couldn't seem to handle the weirdness and wouldn't let me get to the hidden track at all. That doesn't seem to happen on any of my current players, though, so maybe I'm just remembering it wrong. I just seem to recall having to actually let it play at normal speed through the intervening silence in order to be able to hear the bonus, but I could be mistaken.
So anyway, playing the "fixed" CDs is now much more enjoyable knowing I don't have to play games to find the extra material.
I've often wondered how many people ever bought such a CD, but only ever played it through to the extent of the tracks listed and then quickly hit the eject button, never knowing that there is anything else there...
I'm sure most folks, though, long ago learned to always wait for the full wrap-around back to track one before ejecting. I always do.
Oh yeah, I meant to say after all that that it sounds like your "Mars" CD is a yet another variation on how these bonus tracks are done. But that 12.5 minutes of silence sounds like it would be particularly annoying to have to skip past every time. If it were mine I'd definitely perform some reconstructive surgery on that thing!
:-)
I am just lucky that I can advance to the bonus track and then just rewind for the 2 minutes. Not a huge deal, but could they bury it any further away? :-)
Coral's My Favorite Distraction was the first one that I had to deal with and if it wasn't for our mutual friend, B, telling me about it, I might have missed it entirely. The tune is totally in French, too, so it is a gem that I would have been upset to miss.
I own Prince's Musicology CD and that was one where he counts down to tunes, runs the clock up and down around and through...drives you crazy. Lots of stuff in the few seconds between songs. Unfortunately, I don't think these things are going away...
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