Falling between two (musical) chairs.
I've come to realize that, just as I was too young to really get into the whole "backward message" thing on albums -- even on albums with actual messages to be heard if you played them backwards (as in Pink Floyd's The Wall) as opposed to the albums that the religious nutters, drug-addled, and other mentally deranged types swore had some satanic/groovy/cosmic/just plain weird words of wisdom if only you were willing to mess up your turntable or tape deck to hear them -- I'm too old to get into the whole super-secret, bonus hidden track BS on CDs.
I mean, Orpheus knows that I don't have the most encyclopedic collection of CDs going, and that I've hardly checked out the equivalent of the Library of Congress' sound recordings; that said, I have yet to hear any "bonus track" that I thought was all that and a bag of chips. For the most part, these "gems" are not diamonds in the rough; they barely qualify as quartz. (The one on Joss Stone's Mind, Body & Soul -- "Daniel" -- should've been kept in the confidence of her therapist/family counselor, as it was a slam against her half-brother Daniel Skillin, a convicted felon who had attempted to rob a post office armed with only a hammer. Yowtch!)
Look, if I want "Easter eggs," I'll dig out one of my Alan Moore-written comic book mini series. Just give me CDs with a complete and accurate track listing, lyrics, production notes, and maybe some liner notes (remember those?): no "surprises" hidden by five minutes of dead air, no thirty second clips of the band tuning up or ripping beer farts into the mic, no half-assed noodlings that should be left on the cutting room floor. If there's some band or singer-songwriter whom I become absolutely obsessed with and feel that I simply must have every single musical scrap of theirs ever recorded, well, that's what bootleg discs are for, innit? The typical high price of a bootleg will force me to convince myself that I actually enjoy the dodgy sound and crap performances usually found thereon; if the track is free, I can be honest in my assessment, and my assessment is that most of the bonus tracks I've heard are eminently forgettable or, at best, nice, but non-essential. (My favorite hidden track thus far -- a cover of "Patches," the Chairmen of the Board song most famously covered by Clarence Carter -- is on Lonesome Bob's second album, Things Change; even so, I can't claim with a straight face that it is an essential, album-defining song.)
I mean, what's next? Frito-Lay announcing on a big of their potato chips: "Absolutely FREE! 1 cubic liter of AIR!"?
I mean, Orpheus knows that I don't have the most encyclopedic collection of CDs going, and that I've hardly checked out the equivalent of the Library of Congress' sound recordings; that said, I have yet to hear any "bonus track" that I thought was all that and a bag of chips. For the most part, these "gems" are not diamonds in the rough; they barely qualify as quartz. (The one on Joss Stone's Mind, Body & Soul -- "Daniel" -- should've been kept in the confidence of her therapist/family counselor, as it was a slam against her half-brother Daniel Skillin, a convicted felon who had attempted to rob a post office armed with only a hammer. Yowtch!)
Look, if I want "Easter eggs," I'll dig out one of my Alan Moore-written comic book mini series. Just give me CDs with a complete and accurate track listing, lyrics, production notes, and maybe some liner notes (remember those?): no "surprises" hidden by five minutes of dead air, no thirty second clips of the band tuning up or ripping beer farts into the mic, no half-assed noodlings that should be left on the cutting room floor. If there's some band or singer-songwriter whom I become absolutely obsessed with and feel that I simply must have every single musical scrap of theirs ever recorded, well, that's what bootleg discs are for, innit? The typical high price of a bootleg will force me to convince myself that I actually enjoy the dodgy sound and crap performances usually found thereon; if the track is free, I can be honest in my assessment, and my assessment is that most of the bonus tracks I've heard are eminently forgettable or, at best, nice, but non-essential. (My favorite hidden track thus far -- a cover of "Patches," the Chairmen of the Board song most famously covered by Clarence Carter -- is on Lonesome Bob's second album, Things Change; even so, I can't claim with a straight face that it is an essential, album-defining song.)
I mean, what's next? Frito-Lay announcing on a big of their potato chips: "Absolutely FREE! 1 cubic liter of AIR!"?