Decades ago, I noticed when I played my Eagles albums, there were (almost) always a message physically scratched in the vinyl in the space between the label and the last song.
Anyone know how those were placed in there? ANyone else notice this besides me?
they were short messages like “Hi from Glenn” or something…I don’t have them in front of me right now.
I’ve seen those on several albums from different artists. Strangely, the only one I can remember was on an Indigo Girls album - it said Viva la Diva, which was the name of the band of the girlfriend of one of the Indigo Girls at the time.
The same way the grooves got there: they were etched into the original copy and recreated into every disc manufactured. For more on the manufacturing process, see this article.
Moved MPSIMS --> Cafe Society.
twicks, who still has about 5 linear feet of vinyl, though she hasn’t touched it in years. Decades.
I remember the first time I noticed one of those messages. I believe it was on an Iron Maiden album – Powerslave, maybe. Don’t remember what the message was, but because of that I had to spend a couple of hours pulling out every record in the collection and seeing who else left little secret messages to their fans.
Joe Walsh did it on his albums (one was “Y Because We Like You”), so it’s not surprising the Eagles did, too.
It was discussed here; Secret Messages Scratched Inside Inner Groove of LPs - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board
They are inscribed with a stylus onto the laquer master disc by the cutting engineer, who must do it without resting his hand on the grooves of the record, accounting for the typical chicken-scratch look of the lettering.
My favorite is on Brian Eno’s Before and After Science: “Arcane benefits of creed”…which is an anagram of the album title. Even more enigmatic is the message on Vacation by the Go-Go’s: “Is this record a pencil or a beer can?”
The ones you’re talking about are on that dead space between the last groove and the label… this is not the same, but I’ve always loved the way thislooked.
Oooh yeah! I had forgotten about that! 
I remember that.
After I first heard about it (junior high?) I ran off and checked all my albums, and found a bunch of them. Some of them were cryptic, some of them were funny.
I can’t remember which ones were which, but I still listen to them every now and then, so maybe I’ll check them out again some time (with bifocals on.)
Ok, learn something new every day. While I did purchase 45s growing up, I never had the money for whole albums and never bought one; I have been completely unaware of these messages for almost 45 years. Neat!
