A Mid-Western Interlude

This week's interlude kills two birds with one stone...

First issue I want to talk about was brought up because last night was the Miss America pageant. Let me just say that I'm stunned that beauty pageants are still around. I would have thought reality shows would have been the death of these kinds of events because I feel like the woman who want to be Miss America are the same woman who want to be on the "Bachelor" and training for both seems like it would be exhausting. Also, I would have thought shows like "Toddlers & Tiaras" would have shamed some people into dropping out the pageant life. Guess not because not only are they still around, we actually have two of them. I don't know the difference between Miss USA and Miss America, but I'm sure it's a technical difference like between Song of the Year and Record of the Year at the Grammys (actually, I know what the difference is there). Either way, Miss Wisconsin won and is the new Miss America, meaning she has a wonderful year full of appearing at Badger football games ahead of her and why Bon Iver's "Wisconsin" is the musical interlude of the week.

Now, "Wisconsin" is a hidden track on Bon Iver's album "For Emma, Forever Ago." Hidden tracks are the other thing I wanted to talk about, because I don't understand them. First of all, now that we all have iPods and can see how much time is left on a track, 'stumbling' onto a hidden bonus song is impossible. The second the song ends and we can see there is still 10 minutes left on the track countdown the jig is up. Secondly, I'm not sure what to do with hidden tracks. I never can tell  if they are meant to be some kind of message to the hardcore fans because only they are supposed to know they exist, a reward for people who are too lazy to get up and switch CDs once they think the album is over or just a song that the band finished too late to include on the original track list when the album artwork was sent to the printers. Either way, I end up feeling like these are the 'deleted scenes' of the music world and too often you can tell why those scenes were deleted. If you don't like a song enough to put it smack in the middle of the album than maybe just keep working on it until you are happy with it. Don't put things out there half-finished.