CDs with wrong/sloppy track indexing

[Progbear]

Is this a pet peeve for anyone else? I was reminded of this by listening to the first UK album, and the misplaced index between “Alaska” and “Time to Kill” (in the middle of John Wetton’s first line of singing!) drives me up a tree! The original Rhino release of Todd Rundgren’s A Wizard/A True Star is rife with sloppy indexing; someone was seriously asleep at the wheel (or at the mixing desk) with that one! Is the Edsel release any better?

As for flat out wrong indexing, the most egregious example has to be Il Balletto di Bronzo’s Ys. Correct me if I’m wrong, but every CD release of this gets it very, very wrong. “Introduzione” should be 11 minutes and change, not 15, for one; and then there’s the matter of all the other tracks! I mean, every version I’ve seen comes with a handy dandy lyric sheet that shows where the track breaks should be, so I don’t know how they could screw it up so badly! (EDIT: it looks like the Mellow CD displays the correct timings on the disc, can anyone confirm that it has the correct timings in actuality?)

[SunRunner2]

Caravan's "And The New Symphonia" is mis-tracked by at least one cut. Very maddening.

[Fracktured]

The first cd version I bought of Wakemans King Arthur had a really bad indexing on the final battle track which came in around the middle of the song. It seemed like whoever tracked it had no idea where the song started so just put it anywhere they felt like it.

[soundsweird]

Too many to mention. And another, similar thing I hate is when the tracklist on the cover says that track 5 is a particular song but when you go to track 5 it's another song because two earlier tracks were joined. Hope you can decipher what I mean there...

[Dave (in MA)]

the misplaced index between “Alaska” and “Time to Kill” (in the middle of John Wetton’s first line of singing!) drives me up a tree!

Somehow I never noticed. I guess I always play the full album.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concer...ckaging_errors

[rdclark]

The initial release of the "Citizen Steely Dan" box set is rife with such errors. I don't know if it was fixed inn subsequent pressings.

[Frumious B]

The old CD of The Joshua Tree stuck the end of “One Tree Hill” onto the beginning of “Exit”.

[moecurlythanu]

And then there's the Akritas CD which isn't indexed at all. Just one track.

[Progbear]

And then there's the Akritas CD which isn't indexed at all. Just one track.

Speaking of Mellow Records, they did that with Bondage’s Anima terra as well. Seven tracks listed on the sleeve, dumped into a single 52 minute track on the disc.

The original CD of Prince’s Lovesexy was banded as a single track as well, apparently at His Royal Purpleness’ request. I think there’s a later version that bands the actual tracks.

[tdotdo]

My peeve is with live CDs. It seems every single one I have puts the band members introduction to the next song at the end of the track for the previous song.

[ronmac]

My peeve is with live CDs. It seems every single one I have puts the band members introduction to the next song at the end of the track for the previous song.

They do that for deejays.

[GuitarGeek]

Too many to mention. And another, similar thing I hate is when the tracklist on the cover says that track 5 is a particular song but when you go to track 5 it's another song because two earlier tracks were joined. Hope you can decipher what I mean there...

You remind me of my very first Hawkwind album, The Xenon Codex. Lost Chronicles is listed as the fourth track on the tracklist. I remember listening to this CD the first time, and wondering why there were only 9 tracks, when there were ten listed on the back cover. After a little sleuthing, I figured out that Lost Chronicles is actually the piano based interlude in the middle of the previous song in the track list, Neon Skyline. So really, track three should have been listed as "Neon Skyline/Lost Chronicles".

Another one that I picked up on sometime back is the CD of the first Captain Beyond. I suppose it's a moot point, but judging from what's listed on Wikipedia, the track listing for the back half of is way off. I've forgotten the details, I'd have to play it again, but I recall that Astral Lady is 15 seconds long on the CD, but Wikipedia says it's should be 58 seconds long. It's the same track, not edited, it's just the indexing is off.

Then there's the penalty tracks on Frank Zappa's Uncle Meat. Would be fine if you could just skip over them, but the last penalty track ends with this noise, which due to the indexing, you hear if you cue up King Kong Itself. I was able to remove the offending noise using Audacity, but you shouldn't have to do that, when you cue up King Kong, it just start with the downbeat of King Kong, not this stupid noise.

One that kind of drives me crazy is the Orion The Hunter album. For those who don't remember Orion The Hunter, they were the band Barry Goudreau formed after Tom Scholz kicked him out of Boston. Anyway, the song So You Ran starts off with this acapella intro, which is for some reason indexed onto the previous track, so if you cue up So You Ran, it starts with the drum fill that immediately follows So You Ran. Or maybe that was one of those "index 0" things, that they used to do on CD's, ya know, you have to choose "index 0" or have to hold down the "bakc" button to rewind back to hear what's in index 0.

Do they still do those indexing things anymore? I know the old CD issue of Caress Of Steel had the individual movements of the two big suites indexed, and I know they did that a lot of classical music things, where the movements of a symphony or a concerto or whatever would be in the various index points of a given track. I remember reading about how on one of the Dick's Picks things, the Grateful Dead (or Dick Latvala or whomever would have been in charge of such things) planned to include a track that was hidden in "index 0" of track one of the disc, you'd have to push hold down the "back" button to hear it but when they tried it out in various CD players, they noted most of them couldn't handle it. When John Oswald did his Grey Folded release, he did the same thing: he actually released it with a 20 minute feedback collage hidden in index 0 of track one of disc two. Unfortunately, once again, many players can't deal with it. I had one Sony Discman that could do that, but every CD player I've had since can't, and I've yet to see a computer CD-Rom that can recognize it.

Oh, and speaking of weird CD indexing, there was the Schicke, Furs & Frohling double CD reissue back in the 90's, where disc two was indexed so that the player would start at track 13, or whatever it was disc one left off with. And some players could handle that and some couldn't. I went a decade or so without listening to A Ticket To Everywhere and the two live bonus tracks because the only CD player I had that could deal with that died on me. Eventually, I found a CD-Rom ripping program that COULD handle it, and finally got to hear that music again.

[JKL2000]

A couple of my pet peeves are:

CDs on which the track length isn't ANYWHERE.

CDs where the year it was released doesn't appear ANYWHERE.

I have needs!

[JJ88]

ISTR the so-called 'definitive remasters' of Genesis' Seconds Out and Three Sides Live have major indexing errors. I tend to play albums like these from start to finish so it's not a big deal, but it's still a mistake.

My copy of the ELP live Mar Y Sol CD (on Shout Factory) has gaps in between the tracks. Ugh. Someone on Amazon also mentioned this so I guess it's not just mine. But maybe it's an error made on later/European pressings as not that many others have commented on it. I bought it a few years after its release.

There's a CD which came free with Mojo Magazine where almost the whole thing (other than the first track!) is wrong.

[Scott Bails]

My peeve is with live CDs. It seems every single one I have puts the band members introduction to the next song at the end of the track for the previous song.

Absolutely. Drives me nuts.

They do that for deejays.

That would make sense for live albums in the 70s and 80s, but it's still in practice today, with albums that have no prayer of receiving any sort of radio airplay.

[Rarebird]

I think the fourth CD in the first Genesis archives box has some sloppy indexing. Also Streetmark - Nordland in the track Nordland

[ronmac]

My copy of the ELP live Mar Y Sol CD (on Shout Factory) has gaps in between the tracks. Ugh. Someone on Amazon also mentioned this so I guess it's not just mine. But maybe it's an error made on later/European pressings as not that many others have commented on it. I bought it a few years after its release.

Sounds to me like it's MP3-sourced.

[SunRunner2]

A couple of my pet peeves are:

CDs on which the track length isn't ANYWHERE.

CDs where the year it was released doesn't appear ANYWHERE.

I have needs!

Agree wholeheartedly with both of these complaints, especially the former one!!!

[JJ88]

Sounds to me like it's MP3-sourced.

No there are 2 second indexing gaps between each track. It's like someone never realised it was meant to run continuously. I have a 10cc album which has a similar screw-up, although only one track was meant to segue so it's not so noticeable.

[Dave (in MA)]

They do that for deejays.

Do a lot of deejays play live albums?

[Dave (in MA)]

No there are 2 second indexing gaps between each track. It's like someone never realised it was meant to run continuously. I have a 10cc album which has a similar screw-up, although only one track was meant to segue so it's not so noticeable.

A lot of CD-R authoring software has that as an option, sometimes as the default setting. Is it a CD-R being sold, by any chance?

[spellbound]

Little Feat - Ain't Had Enough Fun. The music is there, the track changes are scattered randomly throughout.

A couple of my pet peeves are:

CDs on which the track length isn't ANYWHERE.

CDs where the year it was released doesn't appear ANYWHERE.

I have needs!

Or, if the year appears, it is the year of the CD release and not of the original album release. Who cares when they put it on CD?

How dare I listen to '70s music?

[moecurlythanu]

Who cares when they put it on CD?

Those who catalog their collections on sites like Discogs and Rate Your Music.

[JJ88]

A lot of CD-R authoring software has that as an option, sometimes as the default setting. Is it a CD-R being sold, by any chance?

No it's 100% a properly manufactured 'silver disc' with an IFPI manufacturing code. I have had one shop-bought CD-R. This was not it (the CD in question was on the BGO label, I have seen a second hand Robin Trower BGO disc which was also CD-R). I understand the practice is more common now.

[progmatist]

Deep Purple's Bananas was completely bananas in the way tracks were listed. Until downloadable versions came out later, I could never make heads or tails of which song was which.