Line #54 Main/AlbumFiller


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4	[[quoteright:349:[[Webcomic/{{Subnormality}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/albumfiller_9894.JPG]]]]
5	[[caption-width-right:349:And that's nothing compared to their ''[[SophomoreSlump second album]]''.\
6	[-[[https://viruscomix.com/abno12.html Single panel comic]] by Winston Rowntree/Viruscomix. Used with permission.-]]]
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10	As most people know, the music industry has two forms of release in stores. There is the standard two song single and the "full-length" album. However, with most artists, the unfortunate reality is that they usually just aren't creative and disciplined enough to produce a large number of well-crafted, unique songs. This especially gets compounded once they officially make it big, having used up years worth of great songs tried and tested with audiences and are usually expected to produce a second album within a year while touring heavily to cash in on their newfound fame. So what does one do to quickly pump out the next? Produce Album Filler.
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12	Album Filler are songs that take a perfunctory, StrictlyFormula stance on to have something bland and pleasant to fill in some time. They're usually straightforward, unimaginative, and otherwise forgettable. Of course, it isn't set in stone that a song will suck for being filler. Just as how some of the most beloved episodes of many a TV show are quite intentional filler, some of the most popular songs were explicitly created as filler. A famous example of a filler track gaining large prominence is "You've Got Another Thing Comin'" by Music/JudasPriest. This is one of the causes of a BlackSheepHit. It differs from being a RarelyPerformedSong, as those songs are meant to be marketable, but for whatever reason, will almost never be heard live again.
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14	As a policy for the music industry, this is a bit of a CyclicTrope as times change and is not entirely consistent across the board. In TheFifties, the single was the primary sales unit and albums were just hit singles thrown together with whatever other crap tunes they didn't have confidence in. It was actually pretty uncommon for artists to enter the studio with the intent of recording an album. Most albums from popular artists of this time were more like [[GreatestHitsAlbum Greatest Hits sets]]. For example, Music/ChuckBerry recorded and released his first hit song ("Maybellene") in 1955, but it wouldn't show up on an album until 1959.
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16	This trend continued in TheSixties; one notorious example is Music/TheBeachBoys being [[ExecutiveMeddling forced by Capitol Records]] to record several albums in a short amount of time, causing them to have to pad out their albums with filler.[[labelnote:*]](The worst example might be the ''Little Deuce Coupe'' LP, which was released ''one month'' after the ''Surfer Girl'' LP and included four previously-released tracks)[[/labelnote]] The hit-factory label Creator/{{Motown}} took it even further, re-recording hit singles for an album with a new singer and never releasing the new version as a single. So you could get all the versions of the hit song you wanted, if you didn't mind paying album price for a single with junk added.
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18	When groups like Music/TheBeatles came about and revolutionized the industry with records like ''Music/SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand'', which began a trend of bands putting out albums that made a unified musical statement, this policy took a bit of a backseat (although most bands still had to produce at least some filler to keep up with contractual demands). The ConceptAlbum started to become popular and rock music was mostly "album-oriented" throughout TheSeventies (some bands, like Music/LedZeppelin and Music/PinkFloyd, even did their best to avoid releasing any singles at all). It seems to be coming back in some genres. Bands that release an album every one to two years are particularly guilty of this-- it's almost unavoidable when they crank out hit singles to get pervasive airplay.
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20	A side-effect of this was the tendency of bands with [[EpicRocking epic songs]], such as Music/BlackSabbath and Music/KingCrimson, to add "subtitles" for different sections of the songs, in order to make it seem like there were more songs and [[MoneyDearBoy they would be paid full royalties]] (this happened to Music/TheMarsVolta too, who were told that for the original version of ''Amputechture'' they'd only be paid for an EP despite its length, so they were forced to add "subsections" and split songs apart to get full royalties).
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22	However, album filler was still unavoidable, and every now and then there'd be one or two clunkers thrown in to keep the album at a certain minimum length. Double albums were especially prone to this, due to the sheer amount of work required for two [=LPs=] of material resulting in many of these four-sided projects being littered with jams, experiments and low-effort filler to justify releasing it on two discs.
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24	Album filler also became an increasing problem when the CD overtook the LP as the dominant physical medium for popular music; because a CD can store 22-28 more minutes of audio than a 12" LP, artists and record companies began to feel as if they were obligated to use as much of this extra space as possible, especially in the US, where the concurrent decline of physical singles in favor of radio and Creator/{{MTV}} airplay forced artists to rely more on album royalties (which are paid per song). Thus, many albums released between 1987 and 2007 would feature well over an hour of music, typically divided among at least 12 different tracks, a good number of which inevitably tended to be filler.
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26	The 21st century acted as a double-edged sword in regards to this trope. On one hand, the advancement of digital sales (e.g. iTunes) and especially the revival of the LP as the premier physical format motivated a number of artists (especially indie musicians and legacy acts) to shift back towards LP-length albums with carefully curated tracklists. On the other hand, the even lower royalty rates of ubiquitous streaming services like Spotify motivated many other artists (especially those whose primary audiences fell outside the comparatively niche Vinyl Revival's scope) to make long albums stuffed with as many songs as possible to maximize profit on these platforms.
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28	Due to its status as a [[OmnipresentTropes Omnipresent Trope]] and the subjective nature of what does or doesn't constitute "filler", there shall be no straight examples. Even listing so-called "aversions" would take up too many pages and be way too subjective. Though we will try to give a summarization of what usually qualifies as "album filler":
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30	* '''BawdySong''': Comedy songs can be great when done right. But some bawdy humor may get on one's nerves. Especially on an otherwise serious album. Even the lowest common denominator is bound to find a song about anal sex, turds, barfing or [[Music/Blink182 fucking a dog in the ass]] irritating after hearing it more than two times.
31	* '''Bonus tracks''': Songs tacked onto an album, usually at the very end, to encourage consumers to buy that particular version of it, particularly CD reissues of previously released albums. Often these tracks consist of non-album B-sides or singles, promotional songs (which may range from a song composed for a movie or a TV show to a new song or two in a compilation album), remixes/extended versions of hit singles (the latter being particularly common with certain releases of 80's albums), or live recordings (the reverse may happen if it's a live album, with the bonus song consisting of an all-new studio track). While bonus tracks can be nice additions if implemented properly (i.e. including unique, enjoyable songs that can breathe new life into the base album), most of the time they just break up the flow of an album and drag it out to the point of apathy, especially if the "bonus" song is the band goofing off, joking around and noodling on their instruments in the studio.
32	* '''[[CoverVersion Cover Versions]]''': Particularly common on country albums prior to about the mid-1970's, this was simply artists covering pop or country standards, songs that were major hits for other artists and so forth. These cover versions have ranged from "why didn't that become the hit?" to "why did he/she/they even bother to record it?" This was more common in an era where an album usually had only one or two songs worthy of being released as singles, and especially when artists who had become proven hit makers with staying power potential recorded and released new albums every year. Those covers are more likely to be seen as lazy filler if the artists are known for writing their own material, since it can be seen as them running out of ideas and being desperate for anything to fill out the album, especially if it fits the "why did they bother?" category.
33	* '''Friends and family members''': Unless the friend or family members are really talented, having some friends, partners or family members StepUpToTheMicrophone to sing something is always a bad idea. There are better ways to impress your girlfriend than having her struggle through a song. Your little kid singing a song is cute from your perspective, but it has no redeeming value for us! When an artist sings an ode or a {{Homage}} to someone the audience doesn't know (an obscure early influence from their pub-singing years) it can backfire too, especially if you explicitly address them by their full name and talk about private issues. The average listener will have the idea that he is referring to some private interaction.
34	* '''HiddenTrack''': Most hidden tracks tend to be pointless too. They are muffled away somewhere at the start or the end of an album. Some artists leave several minutes of silence between tracks before you finally get to the hidden track, with the silence and hidden track being ''part of'' the last officially-listed track. Either way, you always have to fast-forward to find it, an especially big problem if the hidden track is included on an LP or cassette release (not so much on a CD or digital release, as these formats don't wear out from repeated playback). These can also be hangovers from hidden jokes on the original vinyl album, which made sense and worked in the vinyl format but aren't so great on CD. An example might be the message in the run-out groove on ''Music/SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand''-- works beautifully on the original vinyl (where it repeats forever until the listener manually lifts the needle off the record unless their turntable does it automatically), a BigLippedAlligatorMoment on the CD version (where it repeats a few times before fading out).
35	* '''{{Instrumentals}}''': These can be sometimes seen as filler, especially if they aren't the artists' specialty and/or those tracks are in the minority. Instrumental versions of vocal tracks are even more susceptible to be seen as pointless filler.
36	* '''Interludes''': Some artists like to announce the next track every time the previous one ended. Others put sketches or skits there. If the interludes happen too much or are unfunny or pointless they will destroy the listening pleasure. Tends to happen on live albums, because such skits or announcements are necessary in live concerts: although the best albums will edit out anything that the listener at home doesn't care about. Folk artists are particularly known for doing this, to give the appearance of a live concert. It works best though when the interlude is something that connects the tracks or otherwise adds to the story the album is trying to tell.
37	* '''Introductions''': An introduction at the start of an album can be epic or get you in the mood if done right. If it just goes on the listener will reach for the ''skip'' button next time.
38	* '''ListSong''': Songs that just summarize a bunch of stuff can get this critique too. Even worse are tracks where he just provides [[WriteWhoYouKnow shout-outs to people he knows]] or by having all those people actually take turns saying something in the microphone! Why not print a list in the sleevenotes?[[note]]Because if you have the chance to put your non-musical family or friends on a random album, why wouldn't you?[[/note]]
39	* '''OdeToIntoxication''': A song recorded while being drunk or high may be funny to those involved, but it is always embarrassing torture to listen to.
40	* '''Outdated songs''': Songs written for a very specific occasion or event in time, with even the exact date attached to it. Let's face it: you lose your timelessness when you write a song about the upcoming 1980s Olympic Games, a bicentennial, the new millennium, or the 10-year existence of your band, and specifically name dates. Cashing in on a fad will also make your song an UnintentionalPeriodPiece that will diminish its chances of clicking in with future generations. Sometimes it can produce NostalgiaFilter, but not always.
41	* '''Overly long tracks''': Since most songs are about three to five minutes long, [[EpicRocking a particularly long track]] can work if it's a well-crafted composition, but they can sometimes get on the nerves of the listener if it's long just from padding. Guitar solos that just go on and on, endless noodling jams, and long chatty anecdotes told in one track are unnecessary [[CelebrityCameo celebrity cameos,]] continuous [[FakeOutFadeOut fade ins and fade outs,]] etc.
42	** OverlyLongGag: A subtrope. Any joke that just goes on and on should have a real good payoff (alternatively, no payoff at all) or be funny in its own way, or otherwise this is again a waste of space for something that won't be re-listened to more than once.
43	* '''Overly short tracks''': Despite having the advantage of being short, even these tracks can be album filler. What is the point of having several tracks of about less than 10 or 20 seconds long?
44	* '''{{Padding}}''': In general.
45	* '''ProductPlacement''': Some tracks are basically advertisements for other artists on the label.
46	* '''Remixes''': This has been a plague since the end of the 1980's. With the arrival of the CD, musicians now had more space on their records that they felt needed to be filled up, and remixing some of the hit songs was usually the solution of choice. Most of the time they are just novelties that don't surpass the original at all. These remixes are typically relegated to the very end of the album as bonus tracks.
47	* '''RepurposedPopSong''': Cobbling mediocre songs together from previous albums to fill up a GreatestHitsAlbum. Even worse when about 95 percent of the album is already in the fan's collection.
48	* '''Silence''': A track that has no music, no lyrics, no sounds,... just silence.
49	* '''Spoken word tracks''': Adding huge chunks of monologue or dialogue without musical accompaniment will always get irritating after a minute or so. Reciting a poem, reading from a novel, adding audio soundbites from a movie, StudioChatter or just [[LeaveTheCameraRunning keeping the recording rolling...]] will get about as irritating as hearing the same advertisement message again and again.
50	* '''StockSoundEffects''': It's not a good idea to have one of your tracks be just one sound effect repeated over and over. A ringing telephone, car traffic outside, playing children, ... These are all things that will be skipped after being played once.
51	* '''ThrowItIn''': A bizarre editing mistake, a song done in one take, an unused leftover from a previous album, an early and uninteresting take of a hit song, some musical experimentation, clowning around, etc, all stuff that was supposed to end up in the garbage can, but is now thrown on an album.
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53	----
54	!!Parodies and mentions:
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56	[[AC:Music]]
57	* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Finnish artist'' Allekirjoittanut'' in the appropriately titled ''Really Catchy Filler Song'':
58	-->''We've got some extra space on our record, even though we thought it was full''\
59	''Our situation is desperate, and our producer is oh-so-restless''\
60	''We need to fill this album, at least halfway''\
61	''Looks like we'll have to put in a filler song among the rest.''
62	* Similarily lampshaded by the German comedian Hape Kerkeling with the similarily appropriately titled ''Auf dieser Platte fehlt ein Lied'' (English ''The album needs one more song''):
63	-->''Noch zwei Minuten dreißig die fehlen ja das weiß ich (...) Auf Text und Inhalt sch*** ich''\
64	(''Still 2m30s are missing, I know (...) I (expletive - roughly "don't care about") lyrics and music'')
65	* The Sweatpants Boners' "The Label Wanted 11 Tracks", which consists of Robby Roadsteamer trying to get the rest of the band to let his intentionally bad, improvised song close the album, arguing that "we ''do'' need eleven songs, and we haven't ''written'' eleven songs".
66	* Sum 41's album ''All Killer No Filler''.
67	* The 1993 CD reissue of Music/SkinnyPuppy's ''Bites'' included all the interlude/filler tracks from the various vinyl editions of the album, plus some previously unreleased material. Likewise, the reissue of ''Remission'' included alternate versions of "Film" and "Icebreaker" from ''Bites'', plus the previously unreleased track "Incision", to extend the playing time to album length.
68	* The songs "Bounce", "X", and "Shimmy" off of Music/SystemOfADown's "Music/{{Toxicity}}" were written with the express purpose of being this.
69	* Nerdcore artist Zilla Persona has the track "This Is Not A Track" where he describes album filler and claims the song itself qualifies as he put little effort into it.
70	* The last three tracks on the CD and digital releases of Roxi Drive's ''Electric Heart'' appear to have been tacked on at the last minute: "Night Waves"(a FilkSong of a horror novel by David Irons), "Automatic", and a SofterAndSlowerCover of "Electricity". Not surprisingly, these were omitted from the vinyl edition.
71	* A significant part of Music/DavidBowie's CreatorBacklash against his 1984 album ''Music/{{Tonight}}'' rested on a belief that the record relied too heavily on this trope, claiming that he had been too creatively drained to come up with original songs in the wake of a massive world tour and consequently filled up the album with {{cover version}}s and rushed collaborations with his friend Music/IggyPop. Noting that the record had been hyped up as a follow-up to ''Music/LetsDance'', his post-disco megahit from the year prior, Bowie instead pejoratively regarded it as a CreatorDrivenSuccessor to his 1973 CoverAlbum ''Music/PinUps''.
72	* Music/{{Eminem}}:
73	** Em's CreatorBacklash against ''Encore'' was in part due to a leak during development forcing him to write filler tracks on very short notice to replace the leaked songs - "We As Americans", "Ricky Ticky Tock", "Love You More" and TheDissTrack "Bully" (all dark and serious songs in line with the tone of ''Music/TheEminemShow''). Eminem hurriedly recorded replacements, then found he enjoyed the spontaneity of the quick recordings and took the opportunity to completely revamp the album with freestyled, stream-of-consciousness songs written on tight deadlines. (It was not helped by the fact that he was struggling with [[CreatorBreakdown an Ambien addiction]] at the time, muffling his technical abilities.) "Just Lose It" was then added to be the [[BlackSheepHit comedy hit single]], and enjoyed some decent success, but the tracklist changes had the effect of unbalancing the album from being one with satirical, blackly comedic songs into a bizarre album where half the songs are completely serious, half the others are ToiletHumor-based novelty songs, and [[CerebusRollercoaster little connection between the album's two moods]].
74	** ''Kamikaze'' is often mocked for this, being a DissTrack EP padded out to album length with a BreakupSong about his former rap group D12, a movie tie-in song ("[[Film/Venom2018 Venom]]") and three love songs. While the love songs in particular can be read as an allegory for his [[TakeThatCritics dysfunctional relationship with critics]], bringing them into the album theme, Eminem openly admitted that once he realised he was going to make an album he combined several projects he was working on without bothering to think much about it.
75	** Eminem has also done parodies of album filler:
76	*** "Under The Influence" on ''The Marshall Mathers LP'' is presented as a song Eminem wrote at the last minute while high.
77	*** "My 1st Single", an ''Encore'' song usually speculated to be one of the last-minute replacement tracks, is a DeconstructiveParody of album filler, presenting it as the result of Eminem trying to write a great lead single in the vein of his work on ''The Eminem Show'' and not being able to replicate it [[FailureHero because he screws up everything he touches]]. With burp sounds.
78	* Music/PublicImageLTD's "Fodderstompf" is the final track of ''First Edition'' and includes the lyric [[{{motormouth}} "We only wanted to finish the album with the minimum amount of effort which we are now doing very successfully"]], which was in fact the case: Their record contract specified they had to deliver a 40 minute album, but they'd only written about 32 minutes of material, so they recorded "Fodderstompf" itself, an eight minute improvised jam to fill out the remaining time.
79	* Former Music/{{Yes}} keyboardist Music/RickWakeman cites this as the reason for his longstanding CreatorBacklash towards ''Music/TalesFromTopographicOceans''. He felt that although there was about an hour of really good music on it, the impulse to fill out four sides of vinyl resulted in a lot of other material that he felt cluttered the album, noting that it would've been better suited for the CD era given that there was too much usable music for one LP and too little for two.
80	* Music/{{Psychostick}} parodies the concept with "We Ran Out of CD Space", a meandering song with rambling lyrics deliberately meant to give the image of being slapped together at the last minute to max out the nearly 76-minute CD.
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82	[[AC:Non-Music Examples]]
83	* WebVideo/ToddInTheShadows discusses this more than once.
84	** He hypothesizes that Music/{{Train}}'s "Hey, Soul Sister", its bizarre lyricism in particular, is the result of a burned out Pat Monahan throwing the first thing that came to his head on paper in order to fulfill his contract, certain that it would never even make it to radio.
85	--->'''Todd (as Monahan):''' Hmm, what rhymes with rug? Drug... Thug? Would a line that uses the word thug make sense here? ''Pfft'', whatever. I mean, who cares? I'm the guy from Music/{{Train}}! I haven't had a hit in seven years and am ''long'' past the point of caring on this one. I'm just doing this because I need to fill the album somehow. [[TemptingFate It's not like I'm ever gonna have to perform this.]] [[WhoWouldBeStupidEnough The record company wouldn't be stupid enough to release this,]] and even if they did, [[LowestCommonDenominator no one would want to listen to it.]] I might as well sing it like I'm doing a Minnie Mouse impression too! I mean, 'cause ''who cares?'' So, you know what? We owe the record company three more songs according to our contract, so let's just can this turd, and we can forget about it forev--
86	--->'''Creator/EllenDeGeneres:''' [[GilliganCut Our next guests currently have one of the biggest hits of their career, here to perform "Hey, Soul Sister", please welcome Train, everybody!]]
87	** Several episodes of ''Trainwreckords'' comment on how prominent this trope became from the 1990's onward, with several featured albums including a number of artistically redundant tracks that only serve to use as much CD space as possible. His episodes on Music/MCHammer's ''The Funky Headhunter'' and Music/{{Metallica}}'s ''Music/StAnger'' even directly cite this trope as a reason for not going through the albums track-by-track, focusing solely on the highlights.
88	* ''Webcomic/{{Subnormality}}'': ''[[http://www.cracked.com/article_17075_every-album-ever.html Every Album Ever]]'' riffs on the concept, depicting the tracklist on a jewel case that bluntly describes the typical layout of albums as a hit single, a few other good tracks, failed experiments, and throwaway material that was stuck on purely to pad out the CD. The spine of the case mentions that this doesn't apply to "the good ones."
89	* ''Series/Girls5eva'': Parodied in the episode "Returnity", which recounts that [=Girls5eva=]'s first album had a filler track that was just them calling each others' names over a beat and asking "are you ready".
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