Rewind That CD!

As often is the case these days, I was using Exact Audio Copy to test a CD before sending it out to another La La user, and notice that track one is highlighted in red. Curious to find out why the program has chosen to highlight the track this way, I then found out about Track Zero, a type of hidden track I had never heard of before.

Most of the time tracks are hidden at the end of CDs, but there is also a way to hide them at the beginning of the CD before Track one starts. The only way to hear them is to put them in a regular CD player and when track one starts playing hit the rewind button until it stops. Not all CD players can rewind in this manner including computer drives.

The CD I found it on was the self titled I Am Kloot album, great track by the way….

Other CD with hidden Track Zeros include

Songs In The Key Of X: Music From And Inspired By The X-Files, there are two hidden tracks;
Factory Showroom by They Might Be Giants.
Super Furry Animals - Guerrilla
Ash - 1977 (two hidden tracks apparently)
Calexico - Feast Of Wire
Queens of the Stone Age- Songs for the Deaf, track entitled "The Real Song For The Deaf"

There are more but this a good list to start with….

there's a great local band called Middle Distance Runner who also did this. man those guys are so fucking hi-tech! they gave away a stealth bomber and a patriot missle at their cd release party back in may. great guys. anyway…

Blur's 'Think Tank' also has a track hidden this way: "Me White Noise" – it's a fun tune.

hoenstly, i'm surprised at the number of people who didn't know about this. when we were making our album, i remember the guys in the band said "what? track 0? you can't do that! idiot!"

i showed them! then i slept with all their girlfriends whilst listening to the hidden track (for good measure).

it's actually a great way of hiding a song… much better than tacking it at the end of the last track – because with ripping/downloading/iPODs, nobody wants a 15 minute long mp3 with 9 minutes of silence in the middle of it.

Third Harmonic Distortion (from Baltimore) did that as well…It was one of the best songs on the album

Bonus tracks on CDs are one of my biggest pet peeves of all time. There is no good reason for them at all.

Originally posted by delancie:
there's a great local band called Middle Distance Runner who also did this. man those guys are so fucking hi-tech! they gave away a stealth bomber and a patriot missle at their cd release party back in may. great guys. anyway…

Very cool I have the MDR CD and will definitely check it out tonight…. I posted this on the La La forum and found out that XTC's - Coat of Many Cupboards compilation has a hidden track of "rather naughty drunken studio jamming", which will have to heard tonight :)

Originally posted by nkotb:
Bonus tracks on CDs are one of my biggest pet peeves of all time. There is no good reason for them at all.

Agreed.

Originally posted by nkotb:
Bonus tracks on CDs are one of my biggest pet peeves of all time. There is no good reason for them at all.

Untitled tracks don't bother me as much as the ones hidden after long silences. Hiding it in track zero at least makes them easier to find by being able to rewind to the beginning of the CD. The most annoying hidden tracks has to be on the second Stone Roses album where they used all 99 tracks on the CD to "hide" nothing of importance…

Ok, I will give you that. Tracking on an extra song as it's own individual track isn't too bad. It's the long silences and blank tracks that kill me. It's like NIN's Broken album, where the first six tracks by were followed by 91 tracks of silence to hide two other songs. What a waste of time.

Still, I see no purpose. If the song doesn't "fit" on the album from an artist standpoint, then don't put it on at all! Having it hidden on the CD still means it's a part of the album. And that's what b-sides are for anyway.

Originally posted by kosmo vinyl:
Untitled tracks don't bother me as much as the ones hidden after long silences. Hiding it in track zero at least makes them easier to find by being able to rewind to the beginning of the CD. The most annoying hidden tracks has to be on the second Stone Roses album where they used all 99 tracks on the CD to "hide" nothing of importance…

I read somewhere that Nirvana chose to go with the hidden track after the long silence on Nevermind in order to startle the listener with the noise fest they included, especially if they didn't realize the CD was still playing. FYI the early pressings of Nevermind didn't include the hidden track, so hang on to those you might have a "collectors" item on han :p

I actually think its pretty cool that I have just 'found' an extra song on a Blur cd that I have had for years. (thanks to the earlier post)

kosmo – what are the hidden tracks on the x-files soundtrack? is it, by chance, the song that Noel Gallagher did … the instrumental track with the rain, wurly, piano? i really like that song, even though it's kind of new-age sounding…

Hidden tracks are completely pointless unless they are used to praise the almighty Lucifer.

Especially on track #666.

I stand behind that 100%.

Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
Hidden tracks are completely pointless unless they are used to praise the almighty Lucifer.

Originally posted by delancie:
kosmo – what are the hidden tracks on the x-files soundtrack? is it, by chance, the song that Noel Gallagher did … the instrumental track with the rain, wurly, piano? i really like that song, even though it's kind of new-age sounding…

dunno the couple of pages that mention the hidden tracks don't say what exactly there are…

Originally posted by nkotb:
Especially on track #666.

I stand behind that 100%.

Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
Hidden tracks are completely pointless unless they are used to praise the almighty Lucifer.

well if you have a cd with 666 tracks on it then you are probably already damned anyways :D

"Soup" the second album (and one of my favorite of all times) from Blind Melon has a hidden track at the beginning, as well. I never knew about it until I read about it somewhere years after it was released.

…on another related note.. I saw "Under the Influence of Giants" last night at Fletchers. Bought their CD and noticed that it was mixed and produced by Brad Smith and Christopher Thorn (former Blind Melon members)

I bought the UTIOG CD and can't decided if I love it or hate it… The whole Bee Gees meet 70s rock vibe has me a bit confused, feels like I should be kicking my own ass for liking it.

Track 0 is to the 90's/2000's what playing an album backwards was to the late 60's and early 70's.

Blur did this on their last release as well. Shocked Kosmo hadn't heard of this phenomenon.

Originally posted by Julian, faux celeb-porn CONNOISSEUR:
Blur did this on their last release as well.

Isn't Think Tank their latest release?