In Praise of Filler

I was going to say that (whether it's filler or not) I am very much in favour of goofy short instrumentals (back when I made tapes side A would always close with Flipside by Breeders, which kind of suffers for being on a one-sided format; the surf closer on Watusi by the Wedding Present is the best damn bit of the whole album), but then I read:

I was just reading about how Boards of Canada kinda like making the little interludes more than the actual songs.

and realised that I couldn't draw the line between the above and roygbiv (short, cheerful interlude, pretty different in sound to the rest of the album, and, y'know, THE track that everyone picks).

But yeah, I like this stuff.
(xposts, heh, only last night I was admiring "after hours" after not really having paid it much attention before. those lyrics...)

The filler is never hidden.

The filler on 3 Imaginary Boys is Foxy Lady - classic filler, that : sung by the bass player, only put on the record at the insistence of the producer, cover version, faux-joky 'chat' before it. Lovely!

yes, hidden filler is a contradiction in terms!

yes, hidden good filler is a contradiction in terms!

fixed.

well yes

The Beatles' version of "Twist And Shout" may be the best piece of filler ever, considering all of their cover versions may be seen as filler.

Are non-album b-sides filler?

if we think of filler as being part of an album which makes sense i think the answer must be no of course. filler can't exist on its own without reference points. it is part of a flow or destroys a flow.

B-sides are in most cases filler in singles though. Or, at least they were back in the day of the vinyl 7 incher.

Are non-album b-sides filler?

almost inevitably.

Semantic interjection: people are seriously privileging connotation over denotation when they say filler is necessarily bad! We have a word for bad songs, and that word is "bad." Filler has more nuance: it is the stuff that fills stuff out! Saying filler is necessarily bad is like saying bread crumbs are necessarily bad, due to their role in filling out, umm, meatloaf.

I prefer Dr. C's notion of filler -- knocked-off, off-topic, "just having fun" stuff used to stretch a record from Six Songs We're Really Insisting On to Ten Songs You Buy.

(Not necessarily fun -- I forgot an "or" in there. Knocked off, or off-topic, or "just having fun," or genre pastiche, or anything where it feels like the band is spacing out the main display by going "oh hey look we made this thing, too.")

all the basement jaxx *ludes

xxpost that's why i said filler isn't *necessarily* bad but i don't think it can ever be good. and yeah in my working def. of the word filler as pertains to the album format might as well be a different word than 'meatloaf' filler, which is integral to meatloaf in a way that filler is not considered integral to an album.
I might be totally totally wrong too, it's just how i've used it and how I thought I'd seen it used since forever. At any rate stuffing like 90% of what constitutes the average modern album into the filler category isn't any more workable, surely.
gosh for someone who never even uses the word i sound like i care haha.

Non-album b-sides are/were my very favourite filler.

I love "Treefingers" on Kid A.

"Flying" by the motherfuckin' Beatles

I liked Madonna filler, especially on earlier albums like True Blue. 'Jimmy Jimmy' and 'Love Makes the World Go Round' etc.