Hidden Track - Techniques

Techniques

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:

  • Similar to the above example, have the song as a separate unlisted track with its own index point.
  • 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.
  • Placing the song in the pregap of the first track, so that the CD must first be cued to the track, and then manually back-scanned; these are often referred to as Track 0 or Hidden Track One Audio (HTOA). The 'downside' of this method is that the CD player will not play these tracks without manual intervention (although this serves the purpose of a hidden track well) and some models (including computers) are unable to read this content. See List of albums with tracks hidden in the pregap.
    • Placing the song in pregaps on other tracks on the album.
  • Using many short tracks of silence before the hidden track. On Danzig's album, Danzig 4, 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".
  • Making the track playable only through a computer.
  • Hide the song in a mixed and/or distorted way which must be undone to play it.
    • Other ways include placing the song even at the start of another song.

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".

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