Sly Stone's "If You Want Me to Stay" does a bunch of things at the end. I think the song peters out/falls apart, the track fades, *and* it suddenly stops?
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 12 January 2022 13:20 (two years ago) link
idk why I'm so interested in this. The emotional response is so specific. When you hear the performance peter out or the tape fuck up it's different. A deliberate cut-to-nothing has a totally unique feeling to it, it always shocks me. I must've heard "She's So Heavy" and been shocked by it as a kid, but then it was "Ascension Day" and it shocked me in my early 20s, and "Silence" (Portishead) in my late 20s. Does this happen in any other medium aside from the finale of The Sopranos?
― flamboyant goon tie included, Wednesday, 12 January 2022 14:14 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nZ25mPwXWoSimple Minds - Murder Story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y87K9-fJbdQElvis Costello - Night Rally
― willem, Wednesday, 12 January 2022 14:31 (two years ago) link
"Ascension Day" isn't quite a cut to nothing, though, it segues straight into "After the Flood"?
Does this happen in any other medium aside from the finale of The Sopranos?
The film of Marat/Sade cuts to black in the middle of a riot, no credits, end of movie.
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 12 January 2022 16:08 (two years ago) link
Something like this happens at the end of Two Lane Blacktop.
― Kim Kimberly, Wednesday, 12 January 2022 17:16 (two years ago) link
Yes, as if the film is melting in the projector a la Persona!
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 12 January 2022 17:40 (two years ago) link
The last track on Black Dice's Beaches and Canyons does this--"Big Drop", at least on the CD...the vinyl version I had went into a locked groove.
― mr. milligan, Wednesday, 12 January 2022 18:11 (two years ago) link
John Cale - Ghost Story
― Hideous Lump, Wednesday, 12 January 2022 21:45 (two years ago) link
excellent thread and fgti otm, there's something about the unexpected cut that's very affecting, takes me right back to hearing Abbey Road in like 1979 or whenever
― bad milk blood robot (sleeve), Wednesday, 12 January 2022 22:55 (two years ago) link
I think every song on Immortal’s battles in the north does this.
― brimstead, Wednesday, 12 January 2022 23:48 (two years ago) link
"Metal Machine Music"
― Someone left a space telescope out in the rain (Tom D.), Thursday, 13 January 2022 07:39 (two years ago) link
That was originally a locked groove, different kind of not ending
― Nerd Ragequit (wins), Thursday, 13 January 2022 12:26 (two years ago) link
Tho I guess the first three tracks count
― Nerd Ragequit (wins), Thursday, 13 January 2022 12:27 (two years ago) link
Yes, I should have specified Sides!
― Someone left a space telescope out in the rain (Tom D.), Thursday, 13 January 2022 12:44 (two years ago) link
Realized that a song I voted for in the tracks poll this year kind of does this (and this time I ctrl-F'ed) - Self Esteem's "I Do This All the Time."
The music tapers, and she starts speaking as though starting another verse, and then the song cuts mid-sentence: "We laid there in the darkness and you were asleep/ And I wasn't checking my phone for a moment and I felt..."
― Indexed, Thursday, 13 January 2022 15:33 (two years ago) link
'06 by vince staples
― roflrofl fight (voodoo chili), Wednesday, 19 January 2022 21:36 (two years ago) link
― assert (matttkkkk), Wednesday, 19 January 2022 22:03 (two years ago) link
Yeah Dhalgren does exactly the same thing.
― Kim Kimberly, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 23:09 (two years ago) link
And Pink Floyd The Wall
― Hideous Lump, Thursday, 20 January 2022 03:33 (two years ago) link
On the ceeenema side, the final shot of Hal Hartley's Henry Fool (1997) cuts off in an ambiguous way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuCmF3l_bqQ
It's not as abrupt/unresolved as The Sopranos, I guess (also, Hartley was likely influenced by Godard, who is mentioned above... not sure I ever made it to the end of a Godard film, though. Lmao!)
― Rockin’, and rollin’, and whatnot (morrisp), Thursday, 20 January 2022 03:51 (two years ago) link
I think what I was hoping to suss out in this thread was "the first occurrence of this happening on a well-known record" and I guess it's kinda apparent that The Beatles coined it, well done Beatles
Now hold on there. "Sticky Sticky", the b-side of 1910 Fruitgum Company's "1-2-3 Red Light" does this and it was released almost a year and half earlier. This track sounds like they were given three minutes of tape to fill (and three minutes to write and record a song) and they kept recording till the tape ran out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKJ60B_Twoo
― Someone left a space telescope out in the rain (Tom D.), Friday, 21 January 2022 18:34 (two years ago) link
^ amazed nobody has sampled this yet!
― Lee626, Friday, 21 January 2022 19:16 (two years ago) link
Back when lyrics, y'know, meant something, not like today's crap music
― umami dearest (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, 21 January 2022 19:39 (two years ago) link
"a well known record", though I hope 1910 Fruitful Company has its day
Finnegan's Wake with its cyclical ending might not count but it kind feels similar. The abrupt "Where?" ending of the Ithaca chapter feels more like it
I lent out my copy of Bouvard et Pecuchet but I remember feeling that the way the novel ended (i.e. it was unfinished) was probably the best-possible way to conclude a book on that form/subject
― flamboyant goon tie included, Saturday, 22 January 2022 21:36 (two years ago) link
It was the b-side of a single that got to #5 in the charts, so I think it's safe to say a lot of people heard it - even if it was only once.
― Someone left a space telescope out in the rain (Tom D.), Saturday, 22 January 2022 21:46 (two years ago) link
More than "Big Empty Field" by Swell Maps, that's for sure!
― Someone left a space telescope out in the rain (Tom D.), Saturday, 22 January 2022 21:49 (two years ago) link
I'm always curious about that - how many buyers at the time actually flipped a record to hear the B-side? I think of the scene from the Assayas film L'Eau Froide, set in the early 70s, where the kids play "Around the Bend" repeatedly but never "Run Through the Jungle".
― Halfway there but for you, Saturday, 22 January 2022 22:34 (two years ago) link
Would Mr. Bungle's Pink Cigarette count?
― MarkoP, Saturday, 22 January 2022 22:48 (two years ago) link
I think I've found an even earlier example of this. On the 1961 album The Best of Jimmy Reed, no less than four of the songs cut off with an obvious tape splice, sometimes in the middle of a measure. This probably has more to do with editing around the peculiarities of the live performance than a self-conscious mixing/mastering decision, because a couple of the songs end with the end of the performance, and the others fade out.
― Halfway there but for you, Monday, 24 January 2022 20:01 (two years ago) link
A newer example is the entirety of Whack World by Tierra Whack; IIRC she didn’t have a good ending for a song and they decided to spin the whole album in the same “Instagram friendly” 1 min per song/video format
― she started dancing to that (Finefinemusic), Monday, 24 January 2022 22:42 (two years ago) link
I think I've found an even earlier example of this. On the 1961 album The Best of Jimmy Reed, no less than four of the songs cut off with an obvious tape splice, sometimes in the middle of a measure.
That's excellent.
This probably has more to do with editing around the peculiarities of the live performance than a self-conscious mixing/mastering decision
seems like something similar is up on Arthur Russell's 'Tower of Meaning', I don't really know what the deal is but would really like to know. I believe some of the tracks are sped up and others are slowed down.
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Tuesday, 25 January 2022 02:43 (two years ago) link
Wilco - Poor Places (cuts off before the last "Foxtrot")
― Hideous Lump, Tuesday, 1 February 2022 07:11 (two years ago) link
“Common Sense” (on Schmilco) cuts off in the middle of an instrumental part.
― False Pretenses Lad (morrisp), Tuesday, 1 February 2022 07:23 (two years ago) link
Deafheaven - Mombasa
― o. nate, Tuesday, 1 February 2022 15:12 (two years ago) link
XTC "Red" - End of side 1 on Go2
― Mark G, Tuesday, 1 February 2022 15:14 (two years ago) link
Occurred to me that they do this a lot in industrial music for dramatic effect, to highlight the I guess manufactured/cutnpaste/triggered/sampled qualities of the music. Like here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iprm5f78CA0
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 1 February 2022 15:58 (two years ago) link
Somebody please upload that "sudden ending" version of "A House Is Not a Motel" to YouTube pronto!!!
― Mr. Snrub, Wednesday, 2 February 2022 12:05 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_At4UAv4WUQ
Is this not it?
― Mark G, Wednesday, 2 February 2022 14:36 (two years ago) link
Arcade Fire - [Antichrist Television Blues]
Guided By Voices must have a bunch of these
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Wednesday, 2 February 2022 14:54 (two years ago) link
(xp) No.
― Someone left a space telescope out in the rain (Tom D.), Wednesday, 2 February 2022 15:10 (two years ago) link
Yes, that "House is not a Motel" is a modern remix, and it seems to me that the ending of the track is the end of the performance.
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 2 February 2022 15:17 (two years ago) link
(xp) I think it is..
There was a combination of someone mixing up the song titles on web boards, but listening to it there it seems to be :1) A longer 'fade', and 2) The sudden ending, i.e. it drops rather than fading out completely.
― Mark G, Wednesday, 2 February 2022 15:31 (two years ago) link
It isn't, my (vinyl) copy had the sudden ending and that definitely isn't it. For a start, the version you posted is a completely different mix and it lasts longer and, most importantly of all, there's no fade at all in the sudden ending version.
― Someone left a space telescope out in the rain (Tom D.), Wednesday, 2 February 2022 19:31 (two years ago) link
I had the notion in my head that at least some of the tracks on Twin Infinitives do this... but listening back, they don't, the band really "stops playing" and the "end" of each "song."
― False Pretenses Lad (morrisp), Wednesday, 2 February 2022 19:51 (two years ago) link
Twin Infinitives kinda has the same effect though because of the excruciatingly long silences between tracks
― flamboyant goon tie included, Wednesday, 2 February 2022 20:02 (two years ago) link
Was listening to Floating Points’ Elaenia yesterday and the album’s closing song ‘Peroration Six’ does this after a big crescendo.
― Indexed, Friday, 11 February 2022 22:31 (two years ago) link
Several tracks on NY & CH's Barn just stop, awkwardly, like somebody dropped somethin.
― dow, Friday, 11 February 2022 22:37 (two years ago) link
Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, "The Sun Goes Down", September 1967. Again, the b-side to a Top 10 hit, so pretty well known. Kind of sounds like a mistake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XEMGnXOZMs
― Was Hitler a Hobbit? (Tom D.), Sunday, 24 April 2022 12:06 (two years ago) link