Bonus Tracks. What do you think?

Vompatti wrote: Sometimes they're nice, but I still think that if they're worth releasing they should be released as a compilation instead of scattering them on a series of remastered albums.

another fine answer!

Valdez wrote: I think there should always be a 15-20 second pause between the original album and the Bonus tracks. Most bonus tracks are bogus but I have a few cd's that have a few killer bonus tracks.

At last a good, one that I agree fully comment!

The rest, sorry, but you're all bashing me, and not really seeing my point, just wanting to avoid it and make me suffer, right?

I'm sure like many, I can set tracks to play on my (multi-disc) CD player too.

I love getting bonus tracks, and I rather expect them these days on most re-releases.  I expect "extras" on DVDs, and love 'em. As has been said, they're usually at the end, so they don't interrupt the flow.  The more extras the better for me.  When I'm listening to a CD for the first time, I usually skip the bonus tracks, but usually find myself enjoying them, or at least find them to be of some interest in the future.  I do prefer it when they are not just alternate versions of the same song, but don't mind those either.

The best "bonus tracks" I can think of are on Jean-Paul Prat's Masal.   There is nearly as much music on the bonus tracks as there is from the original LP "Masal" release, and it's different music that is excellent, but had never been released before.

An excerpt from a review to be seen at gnosis: http://gnosis2000.net/reviews/prat.htm

Peter Thelen wrote: ...How often is it that a CD comes out with bonus tracks that are every bit as good as the original material they augment? In fact that is the case with this reissue: an entire album's worth of solid material recorded after Masal, but never before released, has been added to the round out the CD - four tracks ranging from three minutes to sixteen bring the playing time of the disc right up to the limit of the medium. Most noteworthy is the nine-minute "Maran Atha-Selah", recorded with a six piece lineup in 1985, and the closer - a wordless vocal piece in six-part harmony, recorded in 1990 with a very positive and uplifting spiritual vibe, not far from some of the recent work by Minimum Vital. If there is only one reissue you buy this year, by all means this should positively be it!

There are quitea few cases where I enjoy the bonus tracks as much as the other music, but usually I just find it nice to have as an extra.

Well, I'm in two minds about tthe bonus tracks, sometimes they're worthwhile, at other times they're unnecessary.

Edited by npjnpj - June 23 2008 at 10:35

Camel has some pretty good live bonus tracks........

B-sides and outtake tracks I can dig. Alternate/live versions of tracks already on the original album, not so much.

Sometimes they're nice, but I still think that if they're worth releasing they should be released as a compilation instead of scattering them on a series of remastered albums.

Can't say I really play them all that often. I usually like the album to end when it was supposed to end. I find demos and single versions of song be be a little useless sometimes. Live tracks are good when the quality is decent (I've never made it through Gog on VdGG's Still Life) but unreleased studios and b-sides are alright a lot of the time. It's hard to listen to them in context a lot of the time, usually if bsides are used as bonuses I try to reconstruct the ep from whence they came and listen to it like that. Bonus tracks... I'm indifferent really, they've never changed the way I've thought about an album, and some of them are good - while some of them I've never listened to and maybe never will.

Generally speaking I like the original albums because of the flow. However there are exceptions, such as Jimi Hendrix, Band of Gypsies......which was a great original album...however...the release of the entire CD was a double CD which contained much great stuff which blew me away....of course someone else felt the same and stole it...so.......

cacho wrote: Well I necessary think they're worthless. THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS but in GENERAL. I highly prefer JUST THE ORIGINAL PLAYLIST. Eg: Deep Purple's bonus tracks are junky BBC sessions of the same song. TAAB has TAAB live version and I think it's worthless and boring. While the Interview is interesting but just to listen once. Good bonus tracks would be B-Sides or Outtakes or even Live versions. But I generally prefer the Original Playlist without getting ruined with junkies or reapeted songs. I think, generally, bonus tracks are a bad thing that ruin the Original Playlist intended by the Author(band, artist). Discuss.

Yep, completely agree and apart from a very few exceptional instances, the 'previously unreleased' description merely serves to confirm why.

There are some truly atrocious live tracks being added to most of the reissued VDGG studio albums and these 'baby clangers' only serve to tarnish a great band's reputation.

On the plus side, there are some real 'diamonds in the mire' on some of the ELP boxed sets which are certainly worth owning.

Let's face it, who wants to see Da Vinci's failed and abandoned sketches that prefaced the Mona Lisa ?