'Filler'

I agree with both comments.

 

Certainly there is such a thing as "filler." Albums often need to be completed at a certain time and sometimes the schedule doesn't accommodate a full-bore attempt at a successful track. Sometimes whole albums need to be delivered to fulfill a contract and work begins and progresses despite there being a true crop of worthy songs. The only problem is that people sometimes jump to conclusions about what is and what is not "filler" and usually those arguments do not have a clear resolution. Usually filler is in the ear of the beholder. But it's very naive to say that there's no such thing as filler, as if every track on any album is a carefully crafted and deliberate work. The real world doesn't often work like that.

 

Some people praise it to the heavens.

 

Filler, as a term goes back to the early LPs. Artist X would have a hit record. Goes into the studio and records versions of other peoples hits of the day to fill out an album. Most of these artists didn't write their own material. The other example is the Beach Boys who literally filled out their albums with BS on occasion.
A lesser song is not filler.

 

Yes, it's a valid term, just an overused and misused one.

 

This is filler. They even talk about it being filler. Disappointing end to a great album.

 

Does Edgar Winter Group's Frankenstein count? Didn't they whip out an instrumental to fill up the album?

And the 1987 cd reissue of Uncle Meat where Zappa added 40mins of dialogue from the Uncle Meat movie to fill up cd2? Sheer torture.

 

People are entitled to like things.

 

I like it. He didn't have to fill the CD.

 

I hate buying Greatest Hit CDs that have filler.

 

Oh, I love that song! But you're right in that it's filler in the correct sense of the word.

 

This is a very likeable album with, arguably, filler. The genesis of the album is well documented: a young band in turmoil, with Bono struggling to put lyrics together at short notice, and the band having little material to work from going in the studio.

 

There is filler but of variable quality.

 

I'm still flabbergasted by the sequencing of the UK version of Setting Sons. It starts and ends with the weakest tracks. The US version which switches the A and B side while also inserting the excellent "Strange Town" works so much better that it's hard to believe that this wasn't the band's intent.

 

Although I'd agree that many people go too far, labeling subjectively weak songs as filler, I think that occasionally some tracks undeniably merit that designation. Someone mentioned "What A Shame" from Fleetwood Mac's Future Games, a jam that was literally thrown together at the record company's behest because the album was too short. The Beach Boys' "Bull Sessions With Big Daddy" is another example, as is the second side of Neu! 2. So my definition of filler would be tracks that were quickly concocted to complete an album that was otherwise too short. There's one brief spoken word filler track at the end of Nilsson's Aeriel Pandemonium Ballet where he literally comes out and calls it a filler track. That's not the same thing as stuff like King Crimson's "Moonchild" or "Revolution #9", which are just experimental tracks that aren't to everyone's taste.

 

Revolution 9 sucks.

 

No way! She’s So Cold is filler? Not in my book

 

Where did I say they weren't?

 

That's a common opinion, but although I don't often feel inclined to listen to it, I'm still glad that it exists, that the Beatles had the nerve to bring that kind of weirdness to the mainstream. Maybe I'll play it tonight in glorious 5.1. . .

Right now, I'm listening to Neil Young's Homegrown and I have to say that "Florida" comes perilously close to filler territory. I don't doubt that Neil had some unfathomable rationale for including it here, but it doesn't hold up to repeated listens. Shakey could be whimsical that way.

 

It's worse than filler. Should have been called Bull Sh!t With Big Daddy. It ruins one of the best album sides The Beach Boys ever made.

 

I actually love the Nilsson track. The first time I heard it, I burst out laughing and it still raises more than smile when I hear it today. I absolutely never skip it. Hence, not filler to me.

 

Re: What A Shame - not sure I buy that story as the album is long enough without the addition of that very short track. In 1971, albums with playing times of thirty minutes or under were still not uncommon and Future Games is well over the thirty mark, even without the offending track.

 

John Lydon sings on PIL's Fodderstompf from their first album, the last track:

"We only wanted to finish the album with the minimum amount of effort
Which we are now doing very successfully"

The track's about 10 minutes long. True filler.

 

Well there you go: Filler really is in the eye of the beholder. It may be clever, but that track is still filler to me since it was intended as such. That doesn't mean that it or any of the other examples I mentioned are bad necessarily.

 

The thing is, it’s so brief, it hardly justifies the physical exertion required to press the ‘skip’ button. You might as well let it play!