# Bands with fifteen minutes of silence on their CDs
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [January 13, 2006, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892 "2006-01-13T22:38:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2006, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892/1 "2006-01-13T22:38:01Z")
I’ve noticed that a lot of bands, usually in the last track on a CD, include a very long segment of silence at the end of a normal-length song, and then (after maybe fifteen minutes of nothingness) include some more music at the end.
I don’t know what the logic is behind this, but it’s damn annoying. I’m forced to stop whatever I’m doing and fiddle with whatever hardware is playing the music to bypass the pointless silence. Sometimes, if I just have music on in the background, I don’t even notice that it’s stopped, and then am surprised when the music starts again.
Are they trying to be cute or something, by hiding content way at the end of the track for people to discover? Stop already, you’re not being clever or unique, you’re just irritating me! If I wanted silence, I’d turn off the player!
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### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2006, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892/2 "2006-01-13T22:54:21Z")
> **[Hidden track](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_track)**
>
> In the field of recorded music, a hidden track (sometimes called a secret track) is a song that has been placed on a CD, audio cassette, LP record or other recorded medium in such a way as to avoid detection by the casual listener. In some cases, the piece of music may simply have been left off the track listing, while in other cases more elaborate methods are used. In rare cases a "hidden track" is actually the result of an error that occurred during the mastering stage of the record's productio...
Nothing new about fooling around, putting music where you don’t expect it. And that Wikipedia article is woefully inadequate, but I can’t be bothered just now, maybe somebody else will…
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2006, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892/3 "2006-01-13T23:11:16Z")
It was cute in the days of cassettes decks. In the days of MP3 players, it’s _really fucking annoying._
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### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2006, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892/4 "2006-01-13T23:15:57Z")
> [@Miller](#):
>
> It was cute in the days of cassettes decks. In the days of MP3 players, it’s _really fucking annoying._
I remember the Ash album, where you had to take the CD back from 0’0" to get the hidden tracks. Except it didn’t always work :S (a forerunner of Digital Copyright Paranoia?..)
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### Author:  [@Lama\_Pacos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lama_Pacos)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2006, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892/5 "2006-01-13T23:18:36Z")
God, it’s so annoying. I can understand the second-to-last track having a lot of silence at the end, making the desired effect if one is listening to the album through, but it drives me off the wall when a song doesn’t have a track to call its own.
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### Author:  [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2006, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892/6 "2006-01-13T23:24:35Z")
Sometimes I go on iTunes and discover that a CD I’ve had for ages has a hidden track that I never bothered to look for.
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### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2006, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892/7 "2006-01-13T23:26:47Z")
Isn’t having a long period of silence a copyright infringement? Wasn’t there was a court case recently where one composer sued another over this?
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### Author:  [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2006, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892/8 "2006-01-13T23:27:32Z")
Subliminal Sonic Laxative cover?
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2006, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892/9 "2006-01-13T23:27:56Z")
And they wonder why people look for free download sites!
Yeah, this is one “artistic” element I can do without.
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### Author:  [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2006, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892/10 "2006-01-13T23:40:28Z")
> [@Quartz](#):
>
> Isn’t having a long period of silence a copyright infringement?
Only if you credit it to John Cage.
Doesn’t anyone have a .wav editor?
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### Author:  [@jakeline](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jakeline)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2006, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892/11 "2006-01-13T23:46:49Z")
Grrr, this drives me NUTS every time I listen to Odelay by Beck. Not only is there this long silence (annoying in and of itself, but not terrible), then there’s this noise that’s a mixture between nails on a chalkboards and brakes on a car going bad. And it isn’t like on Dookie by Green Day where the song is mastered pretty low. That shit is LOUD. Good lord, it makes me jump every freakin’ time!
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### Author:  [@Purd\_Werfect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Purd_Werfect)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2006, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892/12 "2006-01-14T01:42:34Z")
I like the silence. It makes an excellent ringtone.
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### Author:  [@Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_You_Big_Red_Fire_Engine)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2006, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892/13 "2006-01-14T02:38:59Z")
> [@John Mace](#):
>
> And they wonder why people look for free download sites!.
😕
I think that’s the stupidest reason I’ve ever heard. It might be that its" **free**".
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### Author:  [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2006, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892/14 "2006-01-14T02:44:20Z")
Back in the vinyl days, I had an album by Hayzee Fantayzee that was purposely designed to skip at the end so it would go on forever, and ever, and ever… until you manually lifted the needle away.
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### Author:  [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2006, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892/15 "2006-01-14T03:49:00Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#):
>
> Doesn’t anyone have a .wav editor?
I was thinking the same thing. (Hint: If you use Windows, you have one.)
The other day my girlfriend was sitting at my computer going through my mp3 files and discovered a piano ballad version of one of her favorite songs. She asked me where I got it, and I told her it was on the CD, about 15 minutes after the last song. She had never noticed that before.
Makes me wonder how anyone is not supposed to see it. I mean, if you play it on Windows Media Player, iTunes, Real Player, Quicktime, or any other media player, you should see that the last track is 15-20 minutes longer than the last song. Your loss if you don’t notice it. I find that it’s usually one of the better songs on the album.
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### Author:  [@Walter\_Windchill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walter_Windchill)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2006, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892/16 "2006-01-14T03:52:41Z")
Will Oldham does that on one of his CDs. I kinda think they just made a mistake when they put it together. I dunno. I don’t sense that there’s some artistic meaning to it. FTR, it’s just at the end of a song in the middle of the CD, not at the end or anything.
It sucks because I can’t put it on mixed CDs unless I open the track in SoundForge or something. I’m too lazy for that.
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### Author:  [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2006, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892/17 "2006-01-14T04:07:25Z")
> [@levdrakon](#):
>
> Back in the vinyl days, I had an album by Hayzee Fantayzee that was purposely designed to skip at the end so it would go on forever, and ever, and ever… until you manually lifted the needle away.
Didn’t the Beatles do the same thing with _Sergeant Pepper’s_?
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### Author:  [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2006, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892/18 "2006-01-14T04:35:58Z")
Hidden tracks. Yeah, it was funny the first time.
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### Author:  [@soulmurk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/soulmurk)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2006, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892/19 "2006-01-14T05:34:09Z")
On the album Undertow, Tool has a “hidden” track at song number 69, and there are only about a dozen songs on the CD, so there are approximately 57 several second long “songs” in between… but even worse than silence, they’re a high pitched whine.
Not so bad on the CD, but it sucked on the tape. At least they did it that way and didn’t just make the penultimate song 20 minutes long.
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### Author:  [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2006, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-with-fifteen-minutes-of-silence-on-their-cds/339892/20 "2006-01-14T06:03:49Z")
That’s so fucking cute. Blank tracks. Wow.
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