10 Hidden Songs You Didn't Know Were On Albums

Spotify ruins the secret a little now but in the days of CD, tape and vinyl, some of the very best albums had songs hidden away from the track listing.

Hidden tracks were a fad at times, ways for the artist to surprise you and a chance to showcase more experimental material. Sometimes chiming in minutes after the perceived end of an album or as untitled interludes between tracks, they were like the Marvel end credits of the physical music generation -- a good old surprise.

Sometimes the hidden songs were fun little pieces of bonus content, others the sort of thing you regret waiting for, and rarely you get genuinely brilliant pieces of music that deserved to have been in the main body of the album (we’re looking at you Endless, Nameless). Hidden songs are always a great way to give your album a larger than life nature and treat people to a little something extra but many remain hidden forever for most people, after all who wants to hang around 10 minutes after the end of an album?

Counting Crows' cover of the Joni Mitchell classic has ended up as the most successful version of the song. The track was released both on the soundtrack for the Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant film Two Weeks Notice as well as on the band’s album Hard Candy (as a hidden song). Despite Big Yellow Taxi being the band’s only top 20 hit in the UK it ended up being largely slated by the music press and landed itself on the NMEs ‘Worst Songs of the 2000s List’.

The song initially featured as a hidden track on 2002s Hard Candy before being replaced by the film version which included singer Vanessa Carlton frivolously contributing backing vocals and ‘oohs’ to the mix as well as her presence in the music video.

Even the best bands can fall short when covering songs from legendary artists and many people are of the mind that this cover of Big Yellow Taxi should remain hidden away at the end of the album and off the track listing forever.