After years I put Crowded House back on. The band is in the Netherlands, plays at Pinkpop, and I am overcome by nineties nostalgia. I turn Woodfacethe album with Weather With You. My admiration for the craftsmanship and harmony vocals of the songwriters Neil and Tim Finn grows with each song. But even after not playing the album for so long, one mechanism is still there. As the ninth track nears its end, I walk to the CD player to avoid disaster.
The high glazed All I Ask should be avoided at all costs. The esoteric text, that drapy string arrangement, the whiny plucked guitar, that cheesy climax: let me be spared this. When the number 10 appears on the display, I press ‘next’. Just in time.
For example, everyone has their forward numbers: songs that can turn a precious album from a 10 into an 8-. Because they’re mediocre or less, or outings that make you wonder how they ever got through the selection. What kind of flush numbers can be distinguished? What are the main reasons for skipping? And what are the songs that hardly anyone leaves on?
The style break
If you put on an album, you do it because the music or the atmosphere of it matches your feeling at that moment or to get you in a different mood. Many of the iconic albums have become so famous precisely because they have more to offer: they have a greater musical scope than what the average listener was actually waiting for, they challenge us.
Adolescents who fell head over heels for Jeff Buckley’s voice and dynamic guitar ballads had to get used to the fact that on his album Grace there was also a falsetto version of Corpus Christi Carol by the composer Benjamin Britten. Excellently done, but for many listeners the break in style may have been just too big.
The fillers
If you map flush numbers, you can’t miss it: the ugly ducklings are often found at number 4 or 5, or somewhere towards the end of the album. At least, if we’re talking about songs from the time of the LPs. Anyone who has grown up with the CD is inclined to see the album as a whole, but the LP player who has to switch sides has to be convinced twice. The artist should consider two tension arcs of approximately equal length. The hits and bangs can often be found at the beginning of side a, but a good entry was usually saved before the start of side b.
A good example from the fill-flush songs category can be found on The Police’s third album, Zenyatta Mondatta. Maybe they could have delayed the release to come up with something better than the bored-sounding one jam Voices Inside My Head (side a, number 5)? After the opener of side b (the hit The Do Do Do, The Da Da Da) immediately kicks things up a notch. Skip it.
The number of the drummer
Every musician knows that you have to befriend a good drummer, because good drummers are rare. So sometimes you have to make painful concessions and let them sing a song. The fellow band members of Queen drummer Roger Taylor were very lenient when they were I’m in Love With My Car gave the chance. It’s about how horny Taylor gets with his car. Nicely rhymed too: ‘The machine of a dream/ Such a clean machine/ With the pistons a pumpin’/ Аnd the hubcaps all gleam’.
The not so successful interlude
When Radiohead OK Computer made, the band also didn’t know that it would become a classic album. With the knowledge of now, would they make the interlude? Fitter Happer have left out? For two minutes you hear a computer voice debit rules for a healthy life. Of course such a track contributes to the artistic image of the band, but secretly the fans want to move on to Karma Policeand blame them.
the earwig
A very legitimate reason to skip a song is the fear that it will remain in your head for days after listening to it. For everyone’s sake, I won’t write out the two-word title of the song about the submarine that serves as a residence. The word image alone can drive entire tribes to despair. So it is permissible to use number six from the a-side of Revolver skip. And yet that’s not even the ultimate Beatles skippable track.
The Failed Experiment
After a tour of social media, it appears that George Harrison’s sitar explorations are little liked. But most often Revolution 9 John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s eight-minute experiment with tape loops. For years, composers have been tinkering with collages and the possibilities of manipulating recorded sound. It is actually sad that this attempt has become iconic.
Revolution 9according to pop critic Gijsbert Kamer ‘a classic case’ among the flush songs, is the penultimate song of the b-side of the second LP of the double album The White Album. I think it’s great that people come there in the first place, because of the thirty barely coherent songs I would skip sixteen: if this had been one LP with a hard and a predominantly acoustic side, it would have been in the top 7 of Beatles albums can get.
The collaboration
A thorn in the ear: artists who collaborate to increase their audience, but where neither party is doing what it is really good at. It has yielded many flush numbers. But collaborations within their own genre can also lead to horrific examples.
In hindsight, of all the nu-metal bands of the late 1990s, KoRn is the most creative, with an original mixture of hard-hitting seven-string guitars, hip-hop and industrial. Opposite the chunky slack bass that is tuned so low that you hardly recognize the tones, there are mysterious and catchy guitar parts and surprisingly strong vocals: hyper and with a large tonal range.
Only one song on their most commercially successful album Follow The Leader is very distressed. Listen to All in the Family, in which singer Jonathan Davis and Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit tear each other apart in cranky raps. Your possible reappraisal for the oft-derided nu-metal genre is immediately gone.
The song way too long
Ever since Spotify came along, the skip button has been just about musicians’ biggest fear. Only if a song has been listened to for more than thirty seconds, a fraction of a cent is paid out. That principle has demonstrably changed music. Gone are the long intros. Singers get to the point quickly, the hook should be there right away.
Many of Bob Dylan’s songs certainly don’t comply with those new laws. The fact that you can immediately see how long a song lasts at Spotify can also cost some clicks for a song like Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts (from the album Blood on the Tracks). Only those who manage to struggle through the Nobel Prize winner’s harmonica solo without chuckling are a true fan.
the instrumental
Until the early eighties it was not uncommon to put an instrumental track on an album. For example, think of Bella Donna on Skunk van Doe Maar (approved, no flush number) or Let’s Go Away for Awhile on Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys (a bit too contrived: definitely flush). Not everyone was waiting for those instrumentals.
The placement of such a flushing instrumental could have dramatic consequences, according to Mark Moorman, chief art of the Volkskrant. Whenever he Stevie Wonders Songs in the Key of Life played – one of the generally recognized highlights in music history – he took the needle off the record for the jazz rocker Contusion (track 4) started, then flip the LP. As a result, he only found out years later how good Sir Duke wash (track 5).
The confrontational number
Of course: it is not the fault of the artists who, without consulting us for a while, stopped between their works of art. It depends on our taste, our mood, our desire for confirmation or the will to be surprised. It is also possible that a number has acquired an unpleasant connotation: you associate it with a funeral or with your ex.
The topics sung about can also be a reason to fast-forward. Tori Amos wanted us to listen to her when she was in Me and a Gun sang about a rape, but for many the song is too uncomfortable. The fact that she sings it a cappella makes it extra direct – there is no escaping it. And if we skip that song, we still feel bad because we’re too weak to even hear her story.
The near-flush number
Yes, albums without forward songs do exist, but they are quite rare and almost all are made by Prince. The Beatles only made one as far as I’m concerned: A Hard Day’s Night. And yet: even on a masterpiece there is one song the least genius, in this case I Should Have Known Better. You don’t have to skip it, but hey, you can!
The functional flush number
Yet we must cherish the little things. And not just a little. The rise of streaming services has made us listen to more playlists. They urge us to click from one hit to the next. But a song like girl by The Beatles it only gets better if you’ve heard Ringo before with What Goes On. Ray Manzarek’s piano from The Doors in Moonlight Drive comes into its own much better after Jim Morrisons Horse Latitudes (spoken word under a bed of instruments played backwards), then after the number that comes before it (Unhappy Girl). And whether you love Freddie Mercury or not, after hearing Roger Taylor, you can only cheer for him.
The mediocre songs remind us that we should be grateful for what we do find very good. And that masterpieces are not self-evident.
The Sounding Middle Finger
Some artists do it for it. After all, a punk record isn’t a punk record without a song that gets the blood out of your nails. In that context, the flush number is an ordeal that you have to endure as a listener. At some point you get used to it, and you find a song like Radio Friendly Unit Shifterthe noise interlude on Nirvana’s in Uteromaybe even fun too.