(Credits: Far Out / Mika Väisänen / Alamy / Fleetwood Mac / Polydor)
Curating a perfect album requires some pickiness. Songs that aren’t quite up to standard should be cut and relegated to practice rooms or live shows until they’re ready for full-blown studio recording. The flow of the record should also be considered. Does each entry serve the overarching themes of the album? Or is there a filler song lurking somewhere amidst the tracklisting? There are physical restraints, too, such as the runtime limitations of 12” vinyl.
Most classic records seem to have considered these questions. They sound as if they’ve been pored over for weeks or months on end, the running order chopped and changed until it sounds just right, songs added and removed as the artist sees fit. The result is a record that flows seamlessly, with few dips or troughs in quality, but sometimes a classic slips through the cracks.
From Prince to PJ Harvey, countless artists have opted to omit some fantastic tracks from their records. The reasons for this can be wide-ranging – whether it’s personal perfectionism or disagreements with creative collaborators – but they can often be challenging to understand from an outside perspective. How could Fleetwood Mac possibly have chosen to exclude ‘Silver Springs’ from Rumours?
Below, we’ve collated a list of ten amazing tracks that artists decided weren’t worthy of a spot on a classic album. Ranging from a Beatles B-side to a fan favourite from Lana Del Rey, they’re songs that would have seamlessly fit into the records they were cut from.
10 amazing tracks bands cut from classic albums:
10. ‘Forget Her’ – Jeff Buckley (Grace)
In 1994, Jeff Buckley delivered one of the most stunning records the rock realm had seen in a long time. In his debut, Grace, the songwriter, pulled together the classic rock influences of his youth, a cover of a Leonard Cohen classic, and high-flying vocals to forge a sparklingly singular take on guitar music. At just ten tracks long, it was wonderfully concise and consistent in quality, but there was one song that didn’t quite live up to Buckley’s high standards.
A decade on from the release of Grace and seven years after Buckley’s death, a posthumous release of the record unveiled ‘Forget Her’. The single showed off Buckley’s melancholic guitars and exquisite vocals, as well as some of his best lyricism. “Don’t fool yourself,” he sang, “She was heartache from the moment that you met her.” Buckley initially omitted the track from Grace, but it’s difficult to understand why.
9. ‘Silver Springs’ – Fleetwood Mac (Rumours)
Almost half a century after the song was first released, a video of Fleetwood Mac frontwoman Stevie Nicks singing ‘Silver Springs’ live has been making the rounds on social media. Modern audiences seem enamoured with the way she performs the track, staring over at her bandmate and former lover, Lindsey Buckingham, as she curses him with the words, “You’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you.”
It’s a formidable moment that seems to encapsulate the feeling of Rumours, Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 magnum opus, which spawned from the band’s excessive substance intake and turbulent internal relationships. Yet, ‘Silver Springs’ never made it onto the original record. Instead, it was relegated to the B-side of ‘Go Your Own Way’. Fortunately, it has since received the recognition it deserves.
8. ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ – The Beatles (Let It Be)
The Beatles recorded many songs during their time together as they went through periods of experimentation, influenced by a wealth of influences shared between them. Ask any diehard Fab Four fan about their favourite B-side, and they’ll have several to hand, but one of the tracks you’ll probably hear mentioned most is ‘Don’t Let Me Down’.
The band intended to include it on their final album, Let It Be, but it was cut, largely due to producer Phil Spector’s advice to leave it out. It’s a soulful love song, with John Lennon taking on lead vocal duty, singing lines like “Nobody ever loved me like she does/ Ooh, she does.” With every jolting chorus, you wonder why the band didn’t include such a stunning number on their last-ever album.
7. ‘Memphis’ – PJ Harvey (Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea)
Following the release of her 1998 album Is This Desire?, PJ Harvey relocated to New York for some time, where she found inspiration for her next album, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. The record features many upbeat cuts, like ‘Good Fortune’ and ‘Kamikaze’, with Harvey exploring themes of love, hope and an underlying knowledge of the world’s innate chaos and corruption. She balances the two well, and on the B-side ‘Memphis’, she similarly contrasts sadness with beautiful remembrance.
‘Memphis’ is an ode to the late Jeff Buckley, who died in 1997. The singer passed away in the city after accidentally drowning in the Mississippi River while swimming, and Harvey wanted to pay her respects to a true talent. Despite mourning him, she sings bittersweet lines like “But oh, what a way to go/ So peaceful, you’re smiling/ Oh, what a way to go/ I’m with you, I’m singing.”
6. ‘I Promise’ – Radiohead (OK Computer)
Radiohead treated fans to a double album reissue of their iconic 1997 album OK Computer in 2017, OKNOTOK, which featured many songs that didn’t make the cut the first time around. There are many excellent picks to choose from, like ‘Lift’ and ‘Man of War’, but ‘I Promise’ is perhaps the most moving. It’s a gentle track that features acoustic guitar and Mellotron, and they first performed it back in 1996.
The band hoped to rework it and release it in the future, but in the end, they chose to leave it as an OK Computer demo, finally releasing a recorded version to the delight of many fans. The strength of these OK Computer demos highlights how incredible an album it is, with these discarded cuts sounding just as fresh over two decades later.
5. ‘Changes’ – Slowdive (Pygmalion)
Pygmalion might not be Slowdive’s best-known work (that crown goes to Souvlaki). Still, it is an incredible record that, only years later, critics have retrospectively recognised as an essential 1990s shoegaze album. With songs like ‘Blue Skied an’ Clear’ and ‘Crazy For You’, the band proved their prowess, creating atmospheric and reverb-soaked pieces that stood in stark opposition to many musical trends of the time, like grunge and Britpop.
In 2010, a reissue of Pygmalion allowed fans to access some of the songs that never made it onto the album, including the gorgeous ‘Changes’, which instantly transports you to another world. It’s a calming number tinged with melancholic instrumentation, accompanying Neil Halstead’s quiet vocals, which fade into the background to allow the dreamy guitars to take precedence.
4. ‘Serial Killer’ – Lana Del Rey (Born to Die)
If you know anything about Lana Del Rey’s discography, you’ll know that her released music is just a small sample of everything she’s recorded in her career. She has hundreds of unreleased tracks which have since leaked on the internet, and many of her fans make DIY music videos for these songs and guard them like secrets from the less hardcore Lana listeners.
You can find a wide sample of tracks that she considered for her major label debut, Born to Die, online, and many of them have now become fan favourites. ‘Serial Killer’ is one of her most beloved non-album numbers – she’s even played it live a few times. It’s poppier than the rest of the record, but it is great fun, with Del Rey providing some addictive vocal refrains and playful lyrics like “Love you just a little too much.”
3. ‘I’ll Try Anything Once’ – The Strokes (First Impressions of Earth)
In 2006, The Strokes delivered a third dose of New York City-style indie rock with First Impressions of Earth. The record opened with a track called ‘You Only Live Once’, which found frontman Julian Casablancas ruminating on humanity, on the ways to see the world and the ways to start a fight. Delivered over their characteristic Strokes strums, it was the perfect opener, but the demo for the track was even better.
‘I’ll Try Anything Once’ preceded ‘You Only Live Once’, featuring a simpler, slower instrumental made up of Nick Valensi’s distant keys. “Ten decisions shape your life,” Casablancas sings, his voice a little fuzzy but intimate all the same, “You’ll be aware of five about.” The song would have bookended First Impressions of Earth perfectly, but it only received an official release as a B-side to ‘Heart in a Cage’.
2. ‘Electric Intercourse’ – Prince (Purple Rain)
Prince’s iconic 1984 record Purple Rain was full of hits. There was the enduringly striking opener ‘Let’s Go Crazy’, the epic and emotional titular track, and countless others, but Prince couldn’t fit all of his show-stopping talent into one nine-track album. In 2017, a series of previously unreleased tracks, including ‘Electric Intercourse’, were shared with the world.
Opening with twinkling keys and subdued percussion, the song falls into bright synths and Prince’s iconic falsetto vocals. “Electric intercourse,” he repeats, “Don’t you wanna make love, sweet love, my love?” His words soar and screech above the comparatively constant instrumentation. It’s easy to imagine how the track would have fit into the original running of Purple Rain.
1. ‘Dark Entries’ – Bauhaus (In the Flat Field)
When they released their debut album in 1980, Bauhaus, for some unknown reason, decided to exclude one of their signature tracks: ‘Dark Entries’. Though the iconic gothic rock song was put out as a single in early 1980, it did not appear on In the Flat Field when it arrived later in the year. This misstep was rectified when ‘Dark Entries’ appeared as the opening track on a reissue eight years later.
Amidst gothic guitars that seem to swirl and screech at each other in equal measure, the track showed off Peter Murphy’s early prowess as a post-punk frontman. “He often sleekly offers his services,” he speaks rather than sings, “exploitation of his finer years, work with loosely woven fabrics.” The track remains one of Bauhaus’ most well-known and well-loved songs, so it’s baffling to think it wasn’t included on their debut record.
