I do not understand bands who try to hide tracks on their albums. What is the point? If the song is so utterly rubbish that they are ashamed of it, why not just remove it all together.

It is not like finding a hidden track is like breaking the Da Vinci code, is it? My first experience with this phenomenon was on the Stone Roses’ Second Coming album at University. I fell asleep listening to it due to booze-induced narcolepsy, but awoke when the hidden track began. At first I thought my stereo was giving me a secret coded message to go out and kill women, but then I realised that it would be too much of an amazing coincidence for it to be giving me the exact same message as the incessant voices in my head. Which was a relief.

I was quite pleased that I had found this secret track, until the following day when all of my housemates said they had all heard it as well. It was clearly the worst-kept secret in the world ever, and this was in the year of George Michael’s “I am really straight me, definitely!” interviews.

There are now literally hundreds of albums with so-called hidden tracks. Most of them are completely shit. There is no curiosity on my part to find them, and anyone telling you that it is a little present for the fans is entirely deluded. Everybody knows that presents are things like clothes, booze or blow-job vouchers, not easy to find studio out-takes.

Music is much better experienced live, I have always believed this, but I have yet to see a band willing replicate a hidden track at a live gig. It can draw some funny looks if you wait till the end when everyone else has gone home just to see if there is another song to be performed, and the security stewards tend not to like it. They come at you with their “I’ve got to go home” this, and “We’re about to lock up” that.

It would be just my luck for the extra track to be performed just as I left, so I assert my rights and I wait, and so should you. And do not let those people breaking up the stage fool you.

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