Exapno’s point is that the radio station doesn’t make the decision. Either the artist or the producers make it. I’m pretty sure he’s right; the radio stations don’t have the right to edit the song in any way the producers do not approve of.
And, yes, I can see an artist okaying the removal of a second verse. Artists can be practical, and I’m pretty sure they often design their songs around the idea that radio edits will happen.
The example I think of most isn’t a radio edit, but it sure seems like Will Smith designed the theme of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air with those extra bits to be able to be edited out. Even if they don’t directly control the edits, any good artist is going to work with the idea that their songs will be edited, so that the results sound at least as good as they can. They don’t want a badly butchered edit representing them.
I understand what you’re saying, and yes, of course Billy approved that version of JTWYA with no second verse, but what you’re saying isn’t exactly correct either. The radio stations can do whatever they want. How many times have we waited in the car because the 4-minute ending to Layla was coming up, and the bastards fade it out early because they need to get to a commercial? I have a vivid memory of that happening with the end of “I Don’t Wanna Go On With You Like That”, from my car-driving, radio-listening days. I love the long piano solo at the end, and they faded it out as soon as the vocals ended.
Obviously radio stations aren’t going to go in there with ProTools and edit out a verse without prior consent, but they can certainly fade it out whenever they want to.
Hypno-Toad, I haven’t heard that! The album version I have just fades out; where did you hear this?
I’ll confirm this from my late 80s, early 90s radio time.
In addition, there may be multiple releases of songs and the records will be labeled for how each version closes.
“Close cold” for a song that stops abruptly
“Close fade” for a song that fades out
“Close false fade” for a song that fades out and comes back (a big pain in the butt)
Examples from my own collection of radio station released 45s:
Queen released “Keep Yourself Alive” with two fades. One that faded as on the record, which is a slow fade, and one that faded within 5 second of the end of the final chorus. The second was labeled ‘Close Fast Fade’.
Again from Queen but 10 years later. The song ‘Hammer to Fall’ had a long sustained chord at the end - 10 second or so - which then ended with a sharp chord and drum snap. That version was available but so was one in which the held chord was omitted. Freddie yelled ‘Give it to me one more time!’ SNAP!
Rush had two versions of the radio single for ‘The Spirit of Radio’ out there. One in which the ending reggae bit was included and one in which is was excluded and the song faded abruptly instead of closing cold a few second later.
This sounds so wrong to me that I suspect we’re talking about two totally different things.
I was discussing songs as individual packages of music. As I said, the record industry is so vast that some exceptions to anything can be found, but generally speaking record companies do not micromanage individual songs. They obviously have opinions about the overall sound of an album or what should be marketed as a single or used for a video and whether they should release a dance mix or other variation, but it’s never made any sense at any time in pop music history to micromanage fadeouts to make them more acceptable to radio. Just the opposite: songs do a million things that make them annoying for radio play.
You need to explain to me exactly where in the process that you think the record companies are exerting their power. It’s not at the music/player level. Is it at the production level? There was a time when companies used their own producers, but the independent producer has been dominant for many decades. An independent works for the band. Disputes can arise and for reasons of time or cost a work may go out that the artist is less than fully satisfied with, but that’s not the same thing. The record company will talk to the artists about their sound and what’s sellable and what would make more money but you’d need to show me that they have absolute control.
The Beatles are an example that work for my case, not yours. We know every detail of their development and even though their producer, George Martin, was in the employ of EMI, even in the very beginning he partnered with them to make them sound good. They got to choose what they recorded, got to reject suggestions to do the songs of others, got to reject songs for singles, and made all the musical decisions themselves with some able assistance from Martin. All this when they were promising newcomers with no clout.
I think you’re referring to the marketing of already produced work, which is the province of the record company and often conflicts with the wishes of the artists. I was referring solely to the music making. Two separate processes.
As a sidenote. Timing is crucial for more than just music cues. I was the news anchor of my college radio station, so when I went to grad school I stopped in at the student station to continue. They had me start with a five minute newscast. The engineer saw a noobie and was prepared to cover my close. I brought the last story in at the 299th second so he could hit the button and change booths on the dot. I think his jaw was open. Remember that one of the continuing jokes of WKRP in Cincinatti was that they kept having dead air, usually Les Nessman’s fault. No dead air. Ever. That’s the rule of rules.
I’m rarely the nitpicker, but you’re definitely moving the goalposts a bit. Your original post was, “Nope, never happens.” You’re now saying, “probably rarely happens, and it doesn’t matter when it does.” And, well, you’re probably right.
The Abacab question is probably the most pertinant example raised in the thread. If engineer_comp_geek’s assertion that radio stations routinely truncated its ending jam, that’s definitely a counterexample. I have no idea if that’s true, but it seems plausible.