Another one that surprised me was that the Guess Who had two different Greatest Hits albums.
One had: Tracklist: Side A: 1. These Eyes 2. Laughing 3. Undun 4. No Time 5. American Woman 6. No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature. Side B: 1. Hand Me Down World 2. Bus Rider 3. Share the Land 4. Do You Miss Me Darlin’ 5. Hang On To Your Life.
I agree it’s much more of an art than a science. It stands out a lot when they seem to get it wrong. There are a few songs from albums that I tend to dislike if I listen to it following a particular song that precedes it on the album. However, if I hear that song out of the blue elsewhere I really like it.
Like following an upbeat song with another upbeat song with a slower tempo.
I remember that…they’d try to lure you into buying a cassette by tacking on more.
I guess too we could note that difference between British Beatles albums and American versions.
PS I used to make mix tapes, so I had multiple lists in my head. If song 1 on the tape is American Pie, will Till Tomorrow be next, or is this the mix tape where I recorded Carly Simon’s “Anticipation” next?
Back when I was in university and buying albums (note: I was in Japan and buying Japanese albums, principally), I noticed that the best songs on an album always seemed to be (if I remember correctly) numbers 1, 4, 11, and 14.
No idea why and possible confirmation bias. I would have to fish up my old CDs and do a proper tally to verify.
I used to have several Beatles 8-tracks. I still have Sgt. Pepper on that medium, and its LP was the same on both sides of the pond. All of the tapes had the songs in a different order from the LPs. I remember reading that this was to avoid the track changing in the middle of a song.
I really hated when a song would change tracks right in the middle. Everybody had 8-track players, but I only had one friend who had an 8-track recorder. I used it to record The Cars’ first album over a Kansas album I had gotten sick of. It sounded great and the track changes in a song were almost unnoticeable- just a click. Why didn’t the record companies do it that way?
I don’t have a cite for this, but at some point I read something about the Stones working on the track order back in the '60s or early '70s, and it was mentioned that the position on the vinyl (closer or further from the center) affected sound quality and thus the song they wanted in a specific position.
Not true these days.
A friend of mine’s aunt, who’s recorded several albums and was up for a Juno Award once, answered the question. Here’s what she said:
“The artist usually decides that. Sometimes in conjunction with an [Artist and Repertoire] rep or the label. (The person who helps you find songs if you need them or pair you with other artists to write/work with.)”
You’d think the one case where the label wouldn’t alter the song order between different media would be a rock opera. You’d be wrong…
I have The Who’s Tommy on cassette. Side 1 starts with “It’s A Boy”. Side 2 ends with “We’re Not Gonna Take It” followed by “Overture”. I guess it evens out the side lengths, and if you had an auto-reverse cassette deck you could set it up to play correctly.
Almost. (nitpick to follow). The “we’ll f*** you like Superman” run-out groove was not on the US release. It first showed up in the US on the 1980 Rarities compilation.
That’s interesting. The latter two are pretty darned deep into an album. I’ve found the 7th song to be often quite strong, but typically it’s either #1 or #2 (depending on whether the album is choosing to start with a BIG song right up front, like “Good Times Bad Times” by Led Zeppelin; or if it’s starting with a slow “mood setter” to ease into the album, like, say, “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (instrumental)” before leading into the big number “Tonight, Tonight” by the Smashing Pumpkins.) Then, yeah, usually #4 is a solid track, but it could be #3 or #5. Taking an album at random, the first Pretenders album, we have “Precious” #1, “Tatooed Love Boys” #4, “Stop Your Sobbing” #7. Pixies Doolittle we have the title track at #1, “I Bleed” #4 (“Here Comes Your Man” is #5, the stronger single), and “This Monkey’s Gone to Heaven” #7.
Typically, the arc of songs I encounter on rock albums tends to be, as I said above, a “grab your attention” opener or quiet, mood setter, followed by another rocker, then a mid-tempo powerful song, a bit of a slowdown for the next couple songs, then ramp up the energy again for a bit, and level out and ease off at the end. That’s just a very general formula with many, many exceptions.
Applying this logic to my favorite non-Disney movie soundtrack, the Batman Forever album, those songs are “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me” by U2; “Kiss from a Rose” by Seal; “The Passenger” by Michael Hutchence; and the last track on the album, “Bad Days” by “The Flaming Lips”. Four of my five favorite songs on the album, the fifth being “The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game” by Massive Attack and Tracey Thorn, which was track 5.
I’ve been on a few records. As mentioned before, it’s usually the artist that picks the final track order. Methods of determining what goes where vary.
To add a little more info, the track order is determined at the mastering stage. At that point you’ve mixed all of the individual instruments down to (generally) two stereo tracks. When you send it to the person doing the mastering, you tell them the order you want them in. While they’re setting reasonable eq/compression and making sure the tracks are all roughly at the same volume, they’ll transfer them in order to a single track for side A and another for side B.
At least, that’s how it goes in the days of digital mastering. I’ve never done a recording that was tape all the way to the pressing plant.
