Usability: Navigation to hidden items

I love xbmc and all it's beautiful skins, but I have a major usability problem with the modern, simple skins. It is good to hide as much as possible but I think it is better not to let the user navigate to hidden items, e.g. menus. In older skins there was a sidebar and it was OK to press left or right on your remote to navigate there. In most of the new skins this menu is hidden and if you browse for example the covers of your music you accidentally show the menu like a pop-up. Pop-up should be activated only through a special button press, otherwise it is confusing for the user:
"What's that? I just wanted to see the next movie poster! Hmm, it's a menu, so let's press the back button on my remote... $#!T, where am I?"

I hope there is a solution for it. Maybe a new dedicated button would be OK, or this menu could appear on side of the main context menu?

What do you think?