On a standard double LP, you have your A and B-sides on disc one. Technically speaking, on disc two, you then have your C and D-sides.

During the peak age of vinyl, artists would almost always reserve the A-side for the superhits, as was the industry standard at the time. Of course, they’d keep it solid on the B-side, and finally round it out with a few more strong-ish tracks on the D-side.

By default, the “C-side” became this sort of void wherein the artist could hide their more adventurous material, i.e. the jams, the tangents, the experimental noise interludes - the stuff that wouldn’t sell more records, the stuff that - despite the label’s wishes - the artist insisted on including.

Here are a few of our favorite “C-sides,” culled from some of the greatest catalogs of all time.

Featuring:

Radiohead. The band goes ful-krautrock on “Ful Stop,” and we’re all for it. Speaking of which, you can listen to their cover of Can’s “The Thief” here.

The Beach Boys. Sonically, “All I Wanna Do” is fifty years ahead of its time; it sounds more Beach House than Beach Boys.

“Waves of Fear” is Lou Reed at his most paranoid, a far cry from the soft-spoken, NYC crooner heard on “Walk on the Wild Side.”

Not that Minor Threat ever had a “hit” per se (the closest was “Good Guys Don’t Wear White”), but this felt like a good chance to finally sneak “Screaming at a Wall” onto a playlist.

And we’d be remiss not to include a track from Devo’s Hardcore Devo compilation, which is, without the slightest doubt, some of the grimiest and most fucked-up shit that’s ever been committed to tape. Ironically, “Fountain of Filth” is perhaps the most polished track on the album. —Jackson Todd