While I like the use of backtracks as hidden tracks (like "
Strange Days" on
Sister Machine Gun's "
Burn"), I detest hidden tracks that are put at the end of an album five minutes after the last track.
TONS of bands do this, and there's really no point to it. In the era of
cassettes, it was a reward for listening to the album all the way through. Once cassette players started using
AMS, you could skip to the hidden track right away. With CDs, there's even less of a point. You can skip to the track right away. Not only that, but put a CD in just about any
CD player, and you can see the time for each track.
Is there a hidden track? Hmmm. The last song is twenty minutes.... and it isn't a Pink Floyd album. Good bet there's a "hidden" track there.
Not only that, but its a little bit annoying ripping and encoding a twenty minute song when you know at least 12 minutes of that is silence. Sure, I can cut it up with a wave editor, but that's an extra step, only there to piss me off, especially since the hidden track is usually crap.