What is "album filler"?

What is "album filler"?

Songs written just to pad the run time out on a release

songs that are uninspired and only there for the "artist" to finish the record. Pop albums tend to have a few singles and lots of filler, where nothing is worthwhile but the singles.

A term used by rockists when a mediocre song breaks their illusion of a "cohesive album experience."

nice meme

Rockist detected.

nice meme

Buzzword

It's a song whose only purpose on the album is to pad out the run time
In practice, though, it's obviously impossible to know which songs are filler unless you were involved in the recording process, so from the perspective of the music listener, it's a completely meaningless buzzword

it's supposed to be this but most people incorrectly use the term to refer to songs they dont like on an album because they're too lazy to explain why they dislike the song

meme nice

There are some obvious examples of filler like songs that sound exactly the same as the single and pointless covers.

>it's obviously impossible to know which songs are filler unless you were involved in the recording process
If you're not musically illiterate it's usually quite easy to tell if a song is filler because the composition will either be trite or the performance might be lackluster or even sloppy.

a pretty good indicator of a song being filler is it never being played live

A song that doesn't push the albums concept further and it mainly there to pad out run time

Or is just extremely uninteresting

OP here, thanks for the explanation

>or the performance might be lackluster or even sloppy
"I'm Looking Through You" by the Beatles ("the fact that" etc.) is a good example of this, as the performance is a mess just about everywhere: John's acoustic guitar is slightly out of tune, George plays out of key several times, the handclaps go off-beat, and Ringo even misses a snare shot at around 1:58. Indeed, the recording present on the album was made a mere four days before the final remixing of the album. It's a prime example of album filler in the sense that they had a tight deadline and had to throw something out there really quickly to meet it.

Not all albums have a "concept" and saying a song is filler just because you find it uninteresting is the most common way the term gets misused.
Inevitably there are going to be songs that the artists put a lot of work into and are very proud of but which you find uninteresting.

How can you tell if something is filler or not?

It's a bit of a shame. The vocal melody isn't bad and they probably could have made a great track out of it given more time.

The artist might say as much, or never play it live (meaning they don't like it) but besides that filler might come off as lazily written and just rehash ideas from the rest of the album.

Covers that don't do anything unique springs to mind besides it just being lackluster compared to the rest of the album. Most covers are intentional and a matter of some small respect, so if it's bad or generic, it's probably filler.

if you think sloop john b is filler you should leave the board

The entirety of Moonlover minus Golden Number.

Man I dig that song desu, one of my favorites on rubber soul

This is exactly what thinking tripfag, I was saying "there are people here who don't like sloop John b."

but it's not a filler, user. its a pretty great song actually

filler can be good

skits desu, especially bad in Last Registration. In College Dropout they're good except for the ones around School Spirit, but they just don't need to be there in Last Registration.

>Croakies and Boatshoes
>Breathe In, Breathe Out
>Roboturner
>Laser Speed

So much filler on an otherwise good album

Wild Honey Pie is a perfect example of filler.

you're just saying that because you don't like it

>My Ashes
>Sentimental
>Way Out of Here

Half the album is filler

>Eon Blue Apocalypse
>The Patient
>Mantra
>Parabol
>Disposition
>Triad
>Faaip de Oiad

With this much filler, why do people consider this a good album?

>Beware the Friendly Stranger
>Dandelion
>In the Annexe
>The Smallest Weird Number
>Energy Warning
>Opening the Mouth
>I Saw Drones
>A is to B as B is to C
>Over the Horizon Radar
>Diving Station
>Magic Window

If they're so good why did they have to put so much filler on the album?

Absolute garbage opinions mates

>not liking the patient
>not appreciating the buildup from parabol into parabola
>hating on Triad

The Patient is the most boring fucking piece of shit song Tool has ever released

Parabol is twice as long as it needs to be and shouldn't have been it's own track

Triad is repetitive shit

absolutely garbage opinion mate

>proving my point that you're opinion is garbage

Danks mort

absolutely garbage opinion of my opinion mate

What consists of 90% of a Swans album

Delete this