Going back to another previous post of mine here, to when I wrote about buying CDs and why I preferred CDs to downloads. Another reason CDs are more fun and will remain so occurred to me this afternoon:
Back in the early nineties, my Dad bought the album Very by the Pet Shop Boys. For a few years after purchasing the CD, he wondered why the player would keep going once the last track, "Go West", had finished. As such, he assumed it was some odd bug with the CD, and so stopped the player manually. One day, he did not do this, and about three minutes after the end of "Go West", he heard the 30-second "Ecstasy (Postscript)" hidden bonus track. The mystery was solved, and from then on whenever Very has been played the bonus segment has been allowed to play and the album able to finish.
Unfortunately, downloaded music puts an end to the fun of quirky little bonus tracks like "Ecstasy (Postscript)", or similar instances such as the remix of "I Am" after "Why Not" on Hilary Duff's Most Wanted and "Chivas" after "Irvine" on Kelly Clarkson's My December. The places where you can buy music to download almost always show track times, and if the last song on an album is significantly longer than all the other tracks, chances are there is a bonus song included in that time, but no longer any surprise of a hidden track remaining.
Still, with music now being downloaded more than ever these days, I am curious to see how many artists will continue to include hidden tracks on their albums. I hope these artists keep it up, although I will understand if they do not.
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