Blog1 min read
On hidden tracks
Eight minutes of silence and a bonus piece. Streaming services unhid the joke and broke it; the bonus survived.
Older albums often have a hidden track — eight minutes of silence at the end of the last song, then a short bonus piece nobody mentioned in the liner notes. It was an interesting trick when an album had to be heard in order, and it became impossible the moment you could click between tracks.
On streaming, hidden tracks are unhidden by default. The platform breaks them out into their own track titled 'Untitled' or similar. The eight minutes of silence are gone, and so is the joke. The bonus piece survives, but with its theatricality removed.
For the rooms here, sometimes the hidden track is the right pick — a short ambient sketch that the album wasn't sure what to do with, but that works perfectly in a quiet room. The artist almost certainly didn't expect it to be the track of theirs that ended up on someone's sleep playlist. Both they and the listener are better off for the misuse.
It's a small reminder that the format the music was made for and the format it ends up in are often different. The album wanted the listener to sit through the silence to earn the surprise. The playlist gives the surprise to anyone who clicks. The track is the same. The contract isn't.