Are you naked? and do you dance? *
*a no-prize to the first who gets this obscure reference.
Endings for songs are hard? Naw — if that were true, concerts would never end.
My guess is that the fade-out is a radio-ready tactic. One rock/pop ending is much like any other: a coordinated series of chord stabs in one of 24 major or minor keys. A fade-out, on the other hand, treats the listener to the song’s “hook,” usually the catchy chorus and the title repeated ad nauseum. That turns those 15 seconds of anonymous and indistinguishable ending from essentially dead air — where the radio is essentially advertising a song but nobody knows what it is — and into further advertisement for the song.
When listening to a big rock ‘n’ roll coda winding up, while the drummer has his rhythmic fit on the drums, who’s to know which song to buy?
I always assumed it was for radio DJ reasons. Around here, it seems that the DJ talks through the first 15 seconds of a song (usually up until the lyrics start) and then starts talking again as soon as the ‘fade’ starts at the end of the song. This makes station identification possible while still claiming that there was “40 minutes of uninterrupted music” or whatever their similiar claim is.
ARG! The guy on the oldies station today pissed me off with that. Most stations have stopped doing it, announcing over dead air and then letting us hear the whole song but it seems that the oldies and the Top 40 station still do the talking-up-to-the-lyrics thing. I assume they have some sort of countdown display; this makes is doubly embarrassing when they miss and talk into the lyrics. :rolleyes: