The Track 4 Hypothesis

Allow me to introduce you to "The Track 4 Hypothesis". A friend of mine once told me that, when he browses or shops for music, he pays particular attention to the fourth song of an album when checking out audio clips. It seems to have been a reliable gauge for him; a good track 4 bodes well for the rest of the disc. Ever since he shared this strategy with me, I've been tempted to put it to the test ... and now, some two years later, I've finally remembered to.

As it turns out, it's not an entirely half-baked theory. The other evening I perused my CD collection, surveying quite a few of my favorite albums and several other titles at random, to see just which songs lay in that normally unremarkable position in the track list. Many of the ones I found were more-or-less representative of the albums they're on, but I was pleasantly surprised to see how many favorite songs of mine just happen to reside on track 4. Among the most noteworthy, in no particular order:

• "Everything We Are", on The Shore's self-titled album
• "Boy Meets Girl", from Bleu's album "A Watched Pot"
• "Racing", Erik Faber's duet with Marte Wulff on his album "Passages"
• "Don't Say Sarah", that scrumptiously Hall-&-Oates-y tune on Wave's album "State of Mind"
• "Ghosts In My Machine", from Annie Lennox's album "Songs of Mass Destruction"
• "I Gotta Move", on Ben Kweller's self-titled album
• "Over You", by Matt Wertz on his album "Everything In Between"
• "It's Gotta Be You", that should-have-been-a-single on Backstreet Boys' opus "Millennium"
• "You Make Me", one of my all-time favorite "Weird Al" Yankovic tracks from his "Even Worse" album
• "That Girl", perhaps the best song on McFly's debut "Room On The 3rd Floor"

There are more, but I figure ten examples was more than enough. (I could have listed Ben Lee's "Catch My Disease" off his album "Awake Is The New Sleep", but since nearly every song on that album is great, finding a good one on track 4 was pretty-much a given.)

Of course, every rule has its exceptions, so there were a few albums I came across from which I can remember most of the songs, but in which case track 4 ended up being one of the forgettable ones (but not necessarily one of the worst), such as:

• "Tail of the Sun", on Stroke 9's album "Nasty Little Thoughts"
• "Kettle's On", from The Feeling's debut album "Twelve Stops And Home"
• "Save The Day", on Train's album "My Private Nation"

And then there were the ones that are memorable, but only for how unimpressive they were compared to the brilliance of the rest of the album:

• "Hollywood's Not America", from Ferras' album "Aliens & Rainbows"
• "Curly's Train", one of the less-appealing George Huntley penned songs by The Connells from their album "Still Life"
• "I'll Sue Ya", "Weird Al" Yankovic's bland nu-metal style parody on his album "Straight Outta Lynwood"
• "Just Got Paid", one of the duller gems (and one of two covers) on NSYNC's tour-de-force "No Strings Attached"

... and I've saved for last the most stunning example of all ...

• "Always In My Heart", the least impressive track by far on my favorite album ever, The Moffatts' "Submodalities"

So, the conclusion I've reached is that my friend's theory is pretty sound (no pun intended), as the average or outstanding examples seem to significantly outweigh the bad. I'm not sure if it'll change my shopping habits or not -- I usually take the time to sample as many sound clips of an album as I can before making a decision on whether or not to buy a title -- but I might end up paying a bit more attention to what's on track 4 than I used to.