Track 2 Syndrome
December 7th, 2004 by Sarin
With my new 200 gig drive all set, it wasn’t too long before I would go on a downloading spree. Considering I have been low on space for almost a year, it was now a great time to catch up on new music and movies that I may have missed.
Turns out, as far as music goes, I have no desire to be on the ball. I am classical in taste and grabbing the newest TRL rock album was not going to make me a happy person. So I did a routine that I said I would do but never got to (considering space and time). I was going to rip every single CD that I owned so I could have all of my music in one location. All 140 something of them, including the full Radiohead, Pearl Jam and Led Zeppelin collections.
The chore turned out to be an extensive one. I learned alot about mp3 ripping, variable bit rates, constant bit rates, joint stereo and the like. My ear is way too peculiar on the quality of a rip, and I could spend hours reripping the same CD so I could achieve the quality I want. Picky me, I guess.
A very interesting trend that I have always seen in albums that this recent experience reinforced was something I call a “Track 2 Syndrome”. Track 2 syndrome is pretty contagious, and pretty hard to stop. The theory behind Track 2 Syndrome is that
An album’s most accessible song or most popular single is usually the second song on its tracklisting
If you think hard enough, this pops up on virtually every good album. I call it a ‘Track 2 Syndrome’, because most albums I hear don’t have intros or interludes and to get to that most accessible song or most popular single, you just skip to track 2. The sad part about ‘Track 2 Syndrome’ is that at most times, the album will never pick up another song as good as the song they wasted at the track 2 slot. Some examples off of my collection that can constitute my claim would be:
- A Perfect Cirle, “Weak and Powerless”
- Andrew WK, “Party Hard”
- Barenaked Ladies, “It’s All Been Done”
- The Beatles, “Something”
- The Beatles, “Eleanor Rigby”
- The Beatles, “With a Little Help From My Friends”
- Blur, “Song 2″
- Brian Wilson, “Heroes and Villians”
- Bright Eyes, “Method Acting”
- Coldplay, “In My Place”
- Dashboard Confessional, “Screaming Infidelities”
- David Gray, “Babylon”
- Dixie Chicks, “Wide Open Spaces”
- Dixie Chicks, “Landslide”
- Everclear, “Everything to Everyone”
- Garbage, “I think I’m Paranoid”
- Grandaddy, “I’m on Standby”
- Gretchen Wilson, “Redneck Woman”
- Guster, “Barrel of a Gun”
- Hot Hot Heat, “No, Not Now”
- Incubus, “A Crow Left to The Murder”
- Interpol, “Obstacle 1″
- Interpol, “Evil”
- Jet, “Are You Gonna be My Girl”
- Jimmy Eat World, “Praise Chorus”
- Justin Timberlake, “Like I Love You”
- Korn, “Freak On a Leash”
- Linkin Park, “One Step Closer”
- Marilyn Manson, “The Beautiful People”
- Marilyn Manson, “The Dope Show”
- Michael Jackson, “Rock With You”
- Modest Mouse, “Float On”
- Nirvana, “In Bloom”
- Norah Jones, “What am I to You?
- OK Go, “Don’t Ask Me”
- Papa Roach, “Last Resort”
- Pearl Jam, “Animal”
- Peter Gabriel, “Sledgehammer”
- Queens of the Stone Age, “No One Knows”
- Rage Against the Machine, “Bulls On Parade”
- Rage Against the Machine, “Guerilla Radio”
- Rage Against the Machine, “Killing in The Name”
- Red Hot Chilli Peppers, “Higher Ground”
- Red Hot Chilli Peppers, “Aeroplane”
- REM, “Losing My Religion”
- Sigur Ros, “Svefn-g-englar”
- Smashing Pumpkins, “Ava Adore”
- Smashing Pumpkins, “Tonight, Tonight”
- Soulfly, “Pain”
- Starsailor, “Poor Misguided Fool”
- Stone Temple Pilots, “Sex Type Thing”
- Stone Temple Pilots, “Vasoline”
- Sublime, “What I Got”
- TaTu, “All the Things she Said”
- The Killers, “Mr. Brightside”
- The Mars Volta, “Inertiatic Esp”
- The Postal Service, “Such Great Heights”
- The Strokes, “Reptilia”
- Third Eye Blind, “Walking With the Wounded”
- U2, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”
- Unwritten Law, “Up All Night”
- Weezer, “Dope Nose”
- Chemical Brothers, “It Began in Afrika”
- Chemical Brothers, “In Dust We Trust”
- The Crystal Method, “Busy Child”
- Prodigy, “Breathe”
- Underworld, “Two Months Off”
- DMX, “Ruff Ryder’s Anthem”
- Eminem, “Stan”
- The Fugees, “Ready or Not”
- Kanye West, “All Falls Down”
- Lost Boyz, “Music Makes Me high”
- Missy Elliot, “Pass that Dutch”
- Mobb Deep, “Survival of The Fittest”
- NWA, “Fuck the Police”
- Snoop Dogg, “Gin & Juice”
- Talib Kweli, “Get By”
- Notorious BIG, “Hypnotize”
- The Roots, “Rock You”
- New Found Glory, “My Friends Over You”
- Rancid, “Fall Back Down”
- Radiohead, “Creep”
- Radiohead, “Paranoid Android”
Man, that was exhausting.
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