Picture the scene. The year is 2012. It is a Thursday night. My quest to get Nell Pearson (not her real name) to be my best friend by pretending I am also obsessed with One Direction has gone a little too far. I own One Direction crockery and a One Direction pop-up tent. I can, and do, watch their X Factor journey entirely in my brain on long car journeys. I am sitting in my bedroom, face illuminated only by the glow of the family 3rd Generation iPad. If the room were more illuminated than this, not an inch of paint would be visible on my walls, just the staring eyes and toothy grins of the quintet my father still insists on calling, “The Styles Brothers.” YouTube is open, to a playlist of songs. I don’t think I need specify the artist.

I am drifting off to sleep. A track begins to play.

I freeze. My eyes open, I shoot up in bed like Frankenstein’s monster.

“This can’t be right,” I think, heart aflutter and eyes darting side to side like a prey animal. I check to see if the rest of the universe is still the way I left it before shutting my eyes. My teddies are still in the same order, the clock still glowing, my books still alphabetised. “This still can’t be right,” I repeat. I know every One Direction song.

I didn’t.

And with the breathy opening drum-beats of One Direction’s ‘Another World’, neon-coloured lyrics assaulting my eyeballs (lyric video created by ‘GrumpyCatFan14,’ probably) I discovered the hidden gem that is the bonus track.

Fast forward nine years, and I sing the praises of the bonus track to anyone who will listen. I find them to be an absolute treat, and my reason why is perhaps best illustrated by the (in my humble opinion) queen of the bonus track – Florence Welch, of Florence + The Machine.

I find her music to be utterly sublime – a technicolour of feeling, with something primal and ethereal running through it like blood through veins. Her bonus tracks are no exception. In fact, to my ears, they are all of that and more. ‘Landscape’ is truthful and scathing. ‘Make Up Your Mind’ is commanding and imperative. ‘Bedroom Hymns’ is blasphemous and scandalous. The common thread? Anarchy. It is as though her main tracks are her walk across a tightrope and the bonus tracks are her dive off. You feel the wind through her hair as she plummets, in the frenzied elements that are absent from the main tracks – the rogue shrieks, the rolling drums, the demands. She is free, because there is no obligation embroiled in these songs – they’re just extras.

Bonus tracks seem to be special gifts to her most adoring of fans, which take the elements that define her music as hers, and dial them up to a hundred. Perhaps that’s where the freedom comes from – they reside on Deluxe and Special Editions, and are bought by people who are already ensnared. They are ‘nothing to lose’ songs, where the artist can be experimental, unapologetic, self-indulgent.

These elements can be seen in the bonus tracks of another of my favourite artists – The Killers. ‘Forget About What I Said’ strips down their sound to its most basic elements: pulsing, rocky thumps and raw lyrics. There’s a jagged edge to it, and desperation in the cry of, ‘I’m older now / and I know you hear me,’ that can only come from a place of honesty and truth. ‘Where the White Boys Dance’ on the other hand has otherworldly undertones, created by off-beat synth and distorted vocals. The world of this song is off kilter, and it is free from the self-created musical confines of The Killers’ mainstream work.

Perhaps I am interpreting this topic too deeply. Perhaps many of my favourite songs just so happen to be bonus tracks. But it doesn’t seem too much of a stretch for me to say that in many ways, bonus tracks appear to be the artist at their most authentic, allowing themselves freedom from the balance and precision required of main tracks. They take the elements that are characteristic of their style and turn them up to full brightness. They are for the artists, and for their most loyal of fans.

Thank you, Nell Pearson (still not her real name) for allowing me to discover their magic.

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