Bonus tracks are a pure marketing ploy with absolutely no positive aspects at all. The Japanese record company wants a bonus track because they can't figure out a way to make it less expensive to sell a Japanese album in Japan than it is to sell an American album in Japan. The US record company wants a bonus track because the album was released there eight months after it was released everywhere else and they want the fans to either wait for that domestic release or buy it again because it has an extra song. The record company wants a bonus track because they're re-releasing a twenty year old classic album again and they think nobody will buy this classic album yet again if all they're selling is this classic album. Or, my favorite, the record company wants a bonus track to stick in the Deluxe Limited Edition which is packaged in a more expensive configuration of plastic and cardboard.
You can all take your bonus tracks and stick them in your ass. They're obviously unfit for ears. Seriously, fuck you guys.
When I buy an album, I want an album. I want the songs that the musicians thought were good enough for the entire world to hear. I don't want to hear the lame song that the musicians thought was so magnificent that they decided only the Japanese should hear it. I don't want to hear some band's half-ass Running Free cover that was done because the musicians didn't want to expend actual creativity on the record company's marketing scheme. I don't want to hear a classic album's ending ruined because some there's-a-reason-it-was-kept-in-a-vault-for-fifteen-years live recording got tacked onto the end of it. I could go into specific details of bonus track atrocity, but there's no point. Bonus tracks suck. There is no possible justification for them that doesn't deal with marketing and a load of financial hooey.
If you ever told an artist "We need a bonus track" for any reason, ever, then you suck. If you are a musician that records extra songs just for this purpose, then you suck. If you are a fan and you bought some different version of an album simply to get at the bonus tracks, then you are a gullible idiot. (For the record, I was a gullible idiot just once in my entire heavy metal career. I bought the Japanese version of Statik Majik when I already had that rape of a US version called Cosmic Requiem or some dumb ass shit) Listeners really need to think before buying a different edition because of a bonus track. The musicians didn't think it was good enough to land on the regular tracklist. Yes, you might love the song, but if you do, how in tune are you with the band's creativity if you love a song that they chose to specifically not be heard by the majority of their fans?
Bonus tracks are unheavy metal, they are unintelligent, they are inhuman. They are evil and must die right now.
You can all take your bonus tracks and stick them in your ass. They're obviously unfit for ears. Seriously, fuck you guys.
When I buy an album, I want an album. I want the songs that the musicians thought were good enough for the entire world to hear. I don't want to hear the lame song that the musicians thought was so magnificent that they decided only the Japanese should hear it. I don't want to hear some band's half-ass Running Free cover that was done because the musicians didn't want to expend actual creativity on the record company's marketing scheme. I don't want to hear a classic album's ending ruined because some there's-a-reason-it-was-kept-in-a-vault-for-fifteen-years live recording got tacked onto the end of it. I could go into specific details of bonus track atrocity, but there's no point. Bonus tracks suck. There is no possible justification for them that doesn't deal with marketing and a load of financial hooey.
If you ever told an artist "We need a bonus track" for any reason, ever, then you suck. If you are a musician that records extra songs just for this purpose, then you suck. If you are a fan and you bought some different version of an album simply to get at the bonus tracks, then you are a gullible idiot. (For the record, I was a gullible idiot just once in my entire heavy metal career. I bought the Japanese version of Statik Majik when I already had that rape of a US version called Cosmic Requiem or some dumb ass shit) Listeners really need to think before buying a different edition because of a bonus track. The musicians didn't think it was good enough to land on the regular tracklist. Yes, you might love the song, but if you do, how in tune are you with the band's creativity if you love a song that they chose to specifically not be heard by the majority of their fans?
Bonus tracks are unheavy metal, they are unintelligent, they are inhuman. They are evil and must die right now.
