Boards
My Musical Pet Hate #857: Bonus Tracks
An album should end when it ends. After the final song an album should stop playing completely. It SHOULD NOT immediately segue into Song ABC (Take 26)
Anybody who knows dick all about music will tell you that it isn't just what you're playing right now which informs the quality of the song, but what is going on around the song at that certain moment in time. Thus, crushingly powerful bits are made far more powerful by being placed directly next to reserved quiet bits, and vice versa, and et cetera, ad finitum. Its all about the bigger picture. And so, when an album reaches its finish there should be silence afterwards. It not only puts the previous noises into context but adds a massive amount of resonance to the final song and the album in general.
I'd say that immediately cramming a selection of bonus tracks at the end is pretty counter-intuitive to appreciating the album. Its a single piece, an artifact, and should be preserved as so, its intended ending included. And if the point of bonus tracks are to further reveal the creative process or show more of the artist, then why the fuck don't you let the album itself show that to the fullness of its capabilities?
Please, just put it on another cd. They're pretty cheap nowadays y'know.
When i make my disgustingly popular breakthrough album i'm putting at least a minute of silence at the end of the last song. Fuck the iPod generation, some things just need to be preserved