I love rock music, but every so often I run across a great tune that disappoints by fading to silence at the end. It’s otherwise nearly perfect! I don’t know about you guys, but I like a hard, defined finale to a rock/pop song. Every now and then a fade-out rings true, but the artist has to approach it just right. Most of the time it ends up feeling like they took the easy way out. So this leads me to a few questions:
Do others feel the same way I do about fade-out endings (i.e. they are not the preferred finale)?
I’ve never been to a rock concert because I’m a lazy ass. How do they perform songs like these live since they can’t fade away on stage?
If they can do it on stage live, why not on the album?
Am I insane for feeling this way?
What genres utilize this method of finale the most? The least?
What does ‘WAG’ mean? I’ve seen it often on this board lately and have not figured it out yet. (wise-ass-guess?)
I love blues as well, which I think connects to this in some way because very few blues tunes fade to silence in the end.
In order:[list=1]
[li]Sometimes, yes, I feel a song would sound better with a definitive fine. But it’s a matter of style and/or the song was meant for a different venue than being played out of someone’s stereo. See #2[/li][li]I’ve been to a few dozen rock concerts. For songs that fade on the album, they usually tack on a finale that disproves what I thought in #1. “OK, it sounds better with the fade.” Maybe the artist can’t perform them well. shrug[/li]
Other times, they turn what used to be the fade into a long, drawn-out jam session, which usually ends with the drummer doing a series of cymbal crashes that slow the tempo down until they finally end with a chord.
[li]The long jam sessions they turn into would reduce the number of songs that can be put on an album.[/li][li]No :D[/li][li]Can’t really think of a particular genre where it’s prevalent. I can think of examples of both kinds of endings from my favorite artists, so I guess it’s just artists preference.[/li][li]WAG = wild-ass guess.[/li][/list=1]
At the end of Christine Lavin’s song “What was I thinking” she goes into a long diatribe about fade-outs at the end of songs – over the very long fade-out of her song, naturally. It goes something like this:
“Did you ever wonder why bands always go into a long fade-out? It’s because they don’t know how to end the song. Except in ‘Want to get to know you’ by Spanky and Our Gang. That was an artistic choice. But in all the other cases they just don’t know how to end it. Are you still listening? You must have ears like a dog!”
All the time, she and her chorus are singing: “What was I thinking? Where will this end?”
Often songs are ending with a repetitive structure of some kind. Maybe it’s the chorus repeated a few times. Maybe it’s a riff, or more likely a groove, that has a repetitive feel to it. The point is probably to get you very involved in that structure, for you to continue grooving and getting into it. Hey Jude is a perfect example, thank you KVS.
Consider the alternative. You could either stop it short suddenly, which tends to jar the listener, or write some new music for a real ending, which leaves the listener remembering the ending. There ain’t nothing wrong with either of those of course, but both of them tend to detract from the groove that you might want to leave in the mind of the listener.
For me, the perfect example is the end of The Who’s Tommy. They repeat the same awesome chorus 5 or 6 times. I wish they did it 30 times, and after the album ends, I don’t put on new music for a bit because I want to retain that feel in my head. On the other hand, they ended Quadrophenia with a very definitive strong rock n’ roll ending, and in my mind, it’s not as memorable. That’s just me.
BTW, you asked about how they replicate it in concert. Listen to the end of Quadrophenia, it’s exactly how many bands do it. Long drum rolls, everyone makes lots of noise, builds tension, and on a hidden signal, everyone stops dead. Almost a cliche for many 70’s bands.
I’m almost positive the repeat and fade is a product of the radio. See, if the song just ends, then the radio station is tied down to a specific song length. If you get a repeat and fade, they can play the whole thing if they need to fill time, or fade even faster if they need to speed things up (say, to start the news at the top of the hour, or more likely, stay on schedule with their commercials).
Possible quibbles with above: why do all songs on an album repeat and fade if not all are destined for radio airplay?
because it’s not always clear when cutting the album which song is going to be the single?
because people got used to hearing the repeat and fade on the radio, so they started doing it for consistency’s sake
hi Opal
(yes, that list WAS superfluous, I just was dying for a chance to make my first “hi Opal”)
Never really thought about fades vs. no fades, but I like the examples given with “Hey Jude” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. I just love how those ending chorus repeat in my head hours after hearing the song, which I suppose is what a “good” fade is supposed to do.
As for question #5, can’t think of a specific genre that prefers fades over non-fades, but I can cite Iron Maiden as a specific band. ALL of their songs from their first six albums utilize the hard-finale ending; the only exceptions are “Stranger in a Strange Land” and “Women in Uniform”. Not sure if the same holds true for their later albums (they really started to suck after Somewhere in Time) but I’ll check and get back to ya.
For concert performances, all songs with a fade ending are re-written with a non-fade ending, for obvious reasons. The only exception I can think of is “40” by U2, which really isn’t a “fade” per se, but each band member playing their instrument more and more quietly until they stop playing entirely, leaving the audience singing, “How long to sing this song…how long to sing this song…” Absolutely beautiful when you’ve got a great crowd.
JET, as a Who fan I must quibble… Won’t Get Fooled Again is anything but a fadeout. I hope you meant to reference We’re Not Going to Take It, the Tommy-ender I was writing about.
In high school marching band, we performed “Hey Jude” when we participated in Aspen, CO’s Winterskol Festival parade. We’d stop in front of the judging area, turn 90[sup]o[/sup], and play. For the ending, it had a indefinite repeating coda. We’d just play on and on, with the crowd singing, drunks wandering amongst us, and our best trumpet player playing a as-high-pitch-as-possible jam. The crowd went wild, and we’d win first place in our category. (We were the only HS band in the parade when we played, so this was easy.)
All parade participants were given a free one-day ski pass good at any of the Aspen Ski Corporation’s areas (three at the time). So we’d do the parade on Saturday, go back to Glenwood Springs that evening (our band director was their HS’s former band director, so they’d put us up in their gymnasium), swim in the GS hot springs pool, then go to Snomass and ski our butts off.
Ok, finished listening to the Maiden catalog (except the two Blaze albums, I’m not in the mood for self-abuse this morning) and we can add “Prophecy” to the list of fades. It’s different from the others, as it’s a tacked-on acoustic guitar solo, not a repeating chorus. Still, 3 songs out of 10 albums is a very, very low incidence of fades.
To augment D18’s radio theory, both “Women in Uniform” (a cover song, actually) and “Stranger in a Strange Land” were released as singles. “Prophecy” was not.
I always get tricked by that false fade at the end of “Do You Love Me.” Sometimes I’ll hear an oldies radio station actually leave it off, however, and I’ll be even more confused.
I used to work at my high school radio station, and another reason to choose songs with fade-outs was that the short cuts between very different songs, say ones with a loud ending switching to one with a loud beginning could be quite jarring and close together. The fade-outs let us worry less about which music to put where in the playlist. This was very important because we were very lazy and preferred not to bother with such details.
