Hidden But Not Forgotten: The Stylus Magazine Non-Definitive History of the Hidden Track

Stylus Staff

Origins and Early Vinyl Surprises


The Beatles’ Abbey Road

Like just about everything else in contemporary pop music, the hidden track seems to have started with the Beatles. Though it can be argued that Sgt. Peppers’ lock groove constitutes a hidden track, really it begins with Paul McCartney’s “Her Majesty” on the Fabby’s swansong, Abbey Road (the song has since been indexed on CD pressings of the record). More than three decades later, what appears to be the first hidden track remains one of the most ingenious uses of the device, if only because it follows the historic and definitive “The End,” which the Beatles knew full-well would be the last track they’d put on record together. Ever. For good“ok, until this comes on. That it’s among the slightest of tunes in the group’s history (and for McCartney, that’s saying something), clocking in at an enjoyably brief 23 seconds, only enhances the degree of winkage. Masterful.
Matthew Weiner


Sly and the Family Stone” There’s a riot goin’ on

It’s been repeated tirelessly, though correctly, that Greil Marcus’s Favorite Negro virtually killed the sixties in one fell sweep with this, the finest depressant ever committed to vinyl. The sound quality is so fucking awful, it sounds as if the songs were recorded over old tracks. The funny part? They were! Sly often “auditioned” his hot new (and female) talents by having them sing on riot, before erasing their tuneless meanderings when he removed his PCP-fried head from the toilet the next morning. If not for Sly’s subsequent and embarrassing fall from amazing grace, this booty-shaking Boogie Man of a pop record might just be enough to convince us all that angel dust is the naked truth.

What does this have to do with the hidden track? Well, for one, it's listed on the label (it's the title track, in fact). For another, the song itself is exactly zero minutes, zero seconds long. You're reading it right, kids: that's meant to mean the riot never happened. Take it from the guy who inspired you to believe in the sixties: it was all a right load of bullshit. Particularly noteworthy for its reversal of the Unofficial Hidden Track Rules in that it’s on the label, there’s just no music here. Or soul, for that matter.
Matthew Weiner


King Crimson’ Various

“Clever-clever” is something that afflicts most of the smarty-pants progressives, not the least of whom is the ever-solemn Robert Fripp. From Crimson’s first record, Fripp loved to “surprise” the listener with music long after he or she had thought the onslaught over. By Islands, their fourth, Fripp was tacking on tapes of himself rehearsing the orchestra minutes after the last song had ended, apparently to remind us just how cultured a lad he was. This is “Ahhht,” you see. But by Larks Tongues In Aspic a year later, which concluded after a long fade with a clip of one of the boys saying, “Could I do one more”immeeejutly,’ the man was apparently using the device to remind himself not to take himself too seriously. It didn’t work.
Colin Wolfowitz


MAD Magazine’ Super Spectacular Day

Issued in a 1979 MAD magazine annual that consisted almost entirely of reprinted strips. MAD had to come up with something to entice the buyer, so they included this flexi-disc — a record that had eight different grooves (all the same song), where each groove would have an alternate second verse to the novelty song. The first groove of “Super Spectacular Day” had only the first verse, all sunshine and roses, looking optimistically at the day to come. The subsequent seemed to hint that the day would not be quite so super spectacular after all, with aliens coming to take your brain and the like. Alfred E. Newman, though — he wasn’t worried. He persevered.
Fredrick Thomas


The Clash’ London Calling

In the history of hidden tracks, The Clash’s “Train in Vain” from their 1979 epic London Calling is noteworthy for earning that label entirely by accident. According to engineer Bill Price, the sleeve work for the record had already been printed when the band finished working on the song and decided to include it on the album. Oh yeah, one other thing’it was by far the album’s biggest hit.

Regardless of whether or not the song was intended to be “hidden,” the effect on the listener is the same. After listening to one hour of what may be the greatest rock album of all time, stuffed chock full of political sloganeering, tales of urban mayhem and suburban supermarkets, and even a rumination on the Spanish Civil War, out of nowhere comes three minutes of ridiculously catchy power pop about nothing more basic than jilted love. And you know what? It fucking rocks. So it doesn’t really matter that the track wasn’t even supposed to be hidden—The Clash could get away with making a song like “Train in Vain” an unlisted bonus on the album of the decade. They were, after all, The Clash.
Jay Millikan


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