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I've seen this at least four times. An album with the usual 4/5 minute songs has a last track of about 15 minutes, of which 10 are silence in the middle of the track.

Is there a meme I'm not aware of? Is it a reference to something?

1 Answer 1

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It's called a hidden track.

Back in the day when CDs first came out, many artists put an extra song on the CD that was not available on the cassette version. It was probably a marketing thing to get people to buy the CDs.

Later when CDs were more popular, some CDs started including a hidden track in the manner you described in your question. Some are placed as a surprise or joke. This could have started because a typical CD only includes about 45 minutes worth of music, but has a capacity of well over an hour and costs the same to produce no matter how full it is.

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  • Another thing some bands did was burn 99 tracks on the CD, the album first, then a hidden track on one of the remaining blank tracks. I think The Stone Roses did that on one of their albums.
    – bot_bot
    Mar 9, 2012 at 12:35
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    Nine Inch Nails - Broken EP has 99 tracks. Tool - Undertow has 69 tracks.
    – Johnny Bigoode
    Jun 4, 2012 at 14:51

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