Miranda Lambert talks ‘Platinum’ and thoughts on bonus tracks

There are 16 tracks on “Platinum,” the fifth album from country singer and songwriter Miranda Lambert, due Tuesday, and that’s what Lambert fans will find whether they go looking for it on Spotify, Amazon, iTunes, Target, Wal-Mart, Best Buy or anywhere else.

That’s a rarity in today’s world of bonus tracks and other exclusive content designed to mollify various mass merchandisers who are looking for extra incentives to win customers. But it is a personal campaign for Lambert.

“I don’t like bonus tracks,” Lambert, 30, said when we sat down in Hollywood recently for a full profile coming soon in Calendar. “If I’m a fan, I don’t want to buy three versions of a record to get all the songs. I just want the record. I just want Garth’s record, I just want Shania’s record. Remember when Shania did that one album with 22 songs on it? I thought that was frickin’ awesome [because] I’m getting more bang for the buck. So here you go people: Here’s 16 songs on ‘Platinum.’”

Actually, Twain’s 2004 “Greatest Hits” album included 21 tracks and her 2002 studio album “Up!” had 19, but Lambert’s rationale was the same.

Besides, she noted that when she has previously been involved in reserving bonus tracks for special editions of an album, she was put in the position of having to leave those songs off the standard release.

“I just don’t do that anymore,” she said. “I like all these songs, they’re all on the record, and y’all can just buy the whole thing. That’s a novel concept.”

She also isn’t a fan of the idea of cherry-picking individual tracks and ignoring others.

“They say people don’t buy full records anymore, and I really want people to buy this whole record because this is a full record. There’s not just singles on there, there’s a whole puzzle, and there’s pieces you miss if you don’t buy the whole thing. And I gave you extra tracks -- c’mon!”