You Just Kinda Wasted All My Precious Time
Observations on album filler
Written by NathantheCynic (5)
We know we don't live in a perfect musical landscape. Never have. So the interesting question sometimes comes up: If an artist absolutely, positively HAS to include a 'filler' song, where should it go?
Certainly not at the beginning of the album, most would agree — then you'd be disappointed outright, and the initial mood would hang over the rest of the album. And not at the end, either — most would agree with that. It'd leave you on a sour note. So where, then?
I contend that the first track of side two is the worst place for a filler song, with the following observations (warning: very long and rambling):
1. It can lull the momentum badly if the last track of side one was particularly engaging (which it often is, provided that it's an album by a smart artist); in these cases, it's like a fire that gets quickly fizzled out (examples: "Right On" on Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, "Tears in the Morning" on The Beach Boys' Sunflower).
2. There are often bad tracks placed at the END of an LP, which is obviously frustrating as hell... but this can often work, seeing as a final track is the place to 'sum up' the album. They can be bad tracks, but nevertheless necessary, and hence not 'filler' (examples: "Torn Curtain" on Television's Marquee Moon, "Little America" on R.E.M.'s Reckoning).
3. In some cases, though, a bad track beginning side two can actually be a good thing, provided that your emotions are following the album every step of the way; this usually works best if it's a track that's completely different from the rest of it, so that it relaxes you before plunging you back in to the album's style(s). Thus, they transcend 'filler,' because such tracks aren't just meant to 'fill up' an album, despite their weaknesses — they have a purpose (I heard an interesting theory about The Beatles' "Revolution 9" in this regard — serving a purpose, that is — but that's another discussion). Examples: "Within You Without You" on The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, "The Bogus Man" on Roxy Music's For Your Pleasure).
4. Since the vinyl LP format is obviously dead, one would think that these concepts don't affect the CD age, but they actually can. Example: Radiohead placing "Optimistic" on side two of Kid A was a daring move, since their 'come-down' song ("Treefingers") was placed at the end of side one; artists these days seem to understand this, and the come-down track is usually put just a bit before the middle. It allows you to feel relaxed enough to tackle the second half.
5. On hip-hop LPs, the artists usually go for a more 'no holds barred' strategy and either (i) try to keep the momentum going as long as possible, or (ii) place a skit on side two to lull you into whatever mood they want. If they choose option (i), then the CD format is certainly the best thing that ever happened to hip-hop.
6. Artists generally did seem to agree with this 'side two' theory, since they recognized that it was like Part II of a two-part book. You'd want to begin it with something that would make you feel energized enough to think that the momentum was not going to falter. Check out most LPs and you'll note that the first track of side two is usually an album highlight.
7. All of the above is relative to an album's time period; the Motown artists and early rock 'n' roll artists had more of a 'just throw all the songs in and release the thing' approach, which may be why nobody bothers to reissue the actual albums of such artist on remastered CD format... because people mostly played albums for a few songs, instead of looking for some kind of 'journey' — the 'journey' format of albums became prevalent in the 1960s rock era, and it then bled into all the other genres soon after (though jazz records were way ahead of them in this regard, one could argue).
8. The obvious answer as to where filler should ideally be, of course, is 'nowhere,' but almost every album in the world has some filler, and everything can't be perfect. Every album has some sucky spots. I submit that the BEST place to put filler is on the third-last track, assuming it's about a standard 10-song LP (I know, this is weird). Therefore, it would be late enough to not significantly damage the album's energy, and early enough not to mar the ending with a 'well what the hell was the point?' feeling.
So yes. I understand that this was longer than needed, certainly... and I also realize that this is more a boring lecture on album structure. But that's my view on the subject, and hopefully you guys'll chip in your views on album filler — I'm always interested in hearing about it. Feel free to submit your own lists of filler tracks on albums that really, REALLY marginalize the album — that'd be fun.
Great article.
It makes me think of the "last song" syndrome on so many albums — the last song does indeed seem to be apart from the rest of the album in many cases, in an attempt to sum it up thematically or musically. I love "Sick Again" from Physical Graffiti but I don't know if I'd like it elsewhere on the album.
Conversely I never really liked "Celeste" by Donovan from Sunshine Superman, or the last track on Love's Forever Changes, although both definitely belong at the end of their respective albums. It's a tough thing to pull off correctly. R.E.M.'s first two albums were particularly successful at ending with an appropriate bang — "West Of The Fields" and "Little America" are awesome as final chapters.
yestermorrow wrote:
Great article.
It makes me think of the "last song" syndrome on so many albums — the last song does indeed seem to be apart from the rest of the album in many cases, in an attempt to sum it up thematically or musically. I love "Sick Again" from Physical Graffiti but I don't know if I'd like it elsewhere on the album.
Completely agree; good choice. I don't think I'd remember "Sick Again" very well if it were placed in the middle (same deal with "Little America" and "West of the Fields", which you also mentioned).
YMorrow: you don't like "You Set The Scene" (Love)?!! Oooofff...
'Last Song Syndrome' also raises the topic of 'hidden tracks' — those often unlisted extras that artists sometimes sneak onto an album (probably more to do listeners' heads in than for any other reason). "Her Majesty" on Abbey Road was one of the first, I guess; but some of the 'techno' brigade have developed a penchant for the trick too. Check out Evolver by The Grid, for example.
NathantheCynic wrote:
Completely agree; good choice. I don't think I'd remember "Sick Again" very well if it were placed in the middle
And it's sort of the odd man out on LZ albums; on nearly every other one they put a huge sweeping epic as the last track — even the first disc of Physical Graffiti with "Kashmir", and the others like "When The Levee Breaks" (greatest LZ song? ;) and "Tea For One" and "I'm Gonna Crawl". I like both approaches, but then I can't point to much at all that LZ did I didn't like.
ant wrote:
YMorrow: you don't like "You Set The Scene" (Love)?!! Oooofff...
Something about that Mellotron or whatever it is sound that kind of drones throughout much of it; it's the same reason I don't really like "Celeste" by Donovan. That's the one aspect of 60s psych-pop that just gets under my skin for some reason. The structure of the song and its changes are great, but that weird tone just makes it seem like a put-on or a short cut.
'Last Song Syndrome' also raises the topic of 'hidden tracks' — those often unlisted extras that artists sometimes sneak onto an album (probably more to do listeners' heads in than for any other reason). "Her Majesty" on Abbey Road was one of the first, I guess
I blame Nevermind for that; everyone had to have a bonus track after that. It's the fact that one song plus 10 minutes of silence plus the bonus song all get indexed as one track that makes it annoying. "Her Majesty" was hilarious in its way, just a strange unexpected little thing to mess with people, as you said.
I like the way Japan does it: consumers there have been used to getting Japan-only bonus tracks for years, and they are actually usually good tracks that were saved for B-sides or whatever elsewhere. So they get "Ship In A Bottle" by Beck, things like that. Real bonus tracks!
What an incredibly well thought out rant on the subject of album structure.
What I would like to chip in is my own belief that a stand out song is not for a fan in most cases. While my favourite song of all time would be "Won't Get Fooled Again," I can't dismiss the other tracks on Who's Next.
"The Song Is Over" was never going to be a concert favourite, mainly because it wasn't a song for the masses. I enjoy this song heartily because it has soul and thought in it, and I get a clearer picture about The Who, and I feel closer to them.
Perhaps the songs you refer to aren't much chop, and Lord knows I don't listen to every song on every album I own, but I must say that there are some definite filler songs that have spoken more loudly to my soul than a hyped up single ever has.
Perhaps we don't live in your perfect musical landscape, but as long as music can speak to my soul, can speak to the souls of the audience, then there is a perfection to it.
Thank you for your valuable thoughts and contributions on the matter. Highly insightful.
Thanks very much, Jake, both for your good words and your insight into the matter. And....
"I must say that there are some definite filler songs that have spoken more loudly to my soul than a hyped up single ever has."
....true words, indeed.
Yes indeed: one man's filler has always been another's fave!
It is, of course, pretty much inevitable that any album will include a 'weaker' or 'incongruous' track (or two). As Nathan so rightly stated:
we don't live in a perfect musical landscape.
It's also expecting a lot of our idols that they maintain excellence and consistency over the course of an entire LP/CD. Many factors: pressures of time/money, the use of material not necessarily intended for said project, the need for a Top 10 single, lapses of artistic objectivity... It's all too easy for us mere mortals to anticipate absolute perfection every time. And maybe good to be reminded that our gods are human too, after all.
Nathan referred to hip-hop tactics for changing mood/pace. The techno approach seems to be to stick the chill-out track either right at the end (final relief) or in penultimate place: the calm before the ultimate storm. [God, I hate musical labels: for 'techno', read 'intelligent electronic music'].
The vinyl vs compact issue raises some interesting issues. I broadly agree that the odd-track-out should be discretely tucked away somewhere mid side 2, to minimise listening disruption. Given the time/space limitations of the (good) old format, however, 'ideal' running orders sometimes had to be re-jigged just to fit everything onto playsides of 25 mins max. "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" was originally intended to be a single track, but was simply too long. Not until the Echos CD compilation did it -or could it- get stuck back together.
The rapid rise of the compact disc as main media, offering 20 more mins of recordable space, has presented artists with the challenge of producing more music in order to use it all up. For companies reissuing 'classic' material, tacking a couple of "Extra Tracks" -of variable quality- onto the end of the original has become a fairly standard practise. For new releases, it could mean that even more 'filler' has become inevitable: and so, where to fit it all on the album...
Thanks for the contributions, ant. And thanks for noting the "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" discrepancies; I didn't know that it was actually intended to be one track. This has now got me pondering whether the split-up version that currently bookends Wish You Were Here is ideal, or whether the album would have gained effectiveness with just the one long epic. Hmmm.....
I should probably work a bit more on the review I'm supposed to be doing here on another album where the sequencing is essential; if nothing else, this discussion has guilted me into working on said review.
Jake Muttheid wrote:
Who's Next
I used to have that album on cassette, and the track order was a little different: it illustrated Nathan's #3 point in the article: the first song on side 2 was "Going Mobile", which is a great, great song but I always felt rather different than the rest of the album ("My Wife" notwithstanding). It's a great way to start side 2; it sounds like the beginning of a journey, which a good album side is, but not as sweeping an epic as "Baba O'Riley", which deserves its place as the side 1 opener.
Less heavy than the other songs, "Going Mobile" kind of eases you back into the album after switching sides (the next track was "Behind Blue Eyes" and it flowed perfectly). Then I believe was "My Wife", the album's real odd man out occupying the third-from-last position as Nathan suggests (and followed by "Love Ain't For Keeping").
Then of course "Won't Get Fooled Again", which is to Who's Next as "When The Levee Breaks" is to Led Zeppelin IV, and awesome epic of grandeur to exit on a high note, after which silence is the only thing that can follow.
Nathan wrote: "I heard an interesting theory about The Beatles' "Revolution 9...""
C'mon then: in the interests of prolonging thngs, what was it?!!
Yes, Termorrow: I remember a fair few cassettes back in the early-mid eighties with running order different to the LP version. Case of tryig to even-up the amount of blank space on the end of each side, I guess.
ant wrote:
Nathan wrote: "I heard an interesting theory about The Beatles' "Revolution 9...""
C'mon then: in the interests of prolonging thngs, what was it?!!
Okay, essentially the point was:
"Revolution 9" is pretentious trash. But it's useful pretentious trash because of the way it's sequenced. Look where it is on The Beatles: second-last song, right between "Cry Baby Cry" and "Good Night".
Now, both "Cry Baby Cry" and "Good Night" would obviously constitute as lullabies (as they're meant to). The former is a more weary, melancholy and quiet lullaby, and the latter is the exact opposite: a sweeping, Broadway arrangement with symphonic overtones.
The problem the band faced was that having two lullabies, with different angles, to be placed side by side on the album would sound redundant (broadly) and odd (more precisely). It would seem anti-climactic. So, Lennon was smart: he knew that he couldn't put an entirely different song in between them — that would also sound anti-climactic. So Lennon created a long, aimless piece of noise (even Lennon knew that's what it was) to put in between the two to make sure the listener doesn't get the odd feeling of indifference at the end of the album; it throws you off in a useful (though irritating) way.
Of course, the band could have just got rid of one of the two songs... but who'd want that?
Nathan wrote:
Of course, the band could have just got rid of one of the two songs... but who'd want that?
Not me, that's fer sure!
Thanks for the info. It does make kind of sense: after enduring Dr O'Boogie's 'long, aimless piece of noise, you're more than ready to swallow the treacle of "Goodnight".
Take this, brother -may it serve you well!
ant Mar 27, 2009 7:52 AM Quote ↓
This is a wonderfully nerdish perusal of the topic: I'm so glad it's been salvaged from comments (esp as I asked for the pontification in the first place!) Nice one, Nathan.
Have a few observations, but presed for time at the mo — I'll get back to y'all soon...