Not songs like "Tattooed Love Boys" where the band ends the song mid-phrase. Songs where, in mastering, the "mute" button is hit seemingly arbitrarily. The song doesn't end but suddenly stops. I associate this "thing" most with Portishead's "Silence" but remembered today that it also occurred on D'Angelo's "Untitled" and Talk Talk's "Ascension Day"...
― flamboyant goon tie included, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 15:35 (two years ago) link
Beatles - I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
― mizzell, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 15:37 (two years ago) link
^^ first one i thought of too
― roflrofl fight (voodoo chili), Wednesday, 5 January 2022 15:38 (two years ago) link
Yes!
― flamboyant goon tie included, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 15:38 (two years ago) link
Joan Crawford segueing into Don't Turn Your Back?
― the body of a spider... (scampering alpaca), Wednesday, 5 January 2022 15:46 (two years ago) link
16 and Love You More by the Buzzcocks
― Dr X O'Skeleton, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 16:23 (two years ago) link
Not sure those two count?
― I Can't See Gervais In My Mind (Tom D.), Wednesday, 5 January 2022 16:37 (two years ago) link
Actually, I can't remember how 16 ends!
― I Can't See Gervais In My Mind (Tom D.), Wednesday, 5 January 2022 16:38 (two years ago) link
From memory, "Negativland" by Neu!
― I Can't See Gervais In My Mind (Tom D.), Wednesday, 5 January 2022 16:40 (two years ago) link
"Every Second Counts" by New Order (more or less).
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 16:41 (two years ago) link
Mystery Zone - Spoon
― 29 facepalms, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 16:43 (two years ago) link
^good one
― i woke up alarmed (morrisp), Wednesday, 5 January 2022 16:56 (two years ago) link
The Dinosaur Jr version of Just Like Heaven
― Gavin, Leeds, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 17:48 (two years ago) link
Real Estate's homage to She's So Heavy, Two Arrows
― mig (guess that dreams always end), Wednesday, 5 January 2022 18:37 (two years ago) link
Pretty sure a song on the third Strokes album does this... maybe "Ize of the World"?
― i woke up alarmed (morrisp), Wednesday, 5 January 2022 18:37 (two years ago) link
Swell Maps have several - Big Empty Field, Collision with a Frogman, Doctor at CakeObviously early Mothers and Faust pioneered harsh tape cuts and did it a lot
Really there are two main flavors of this, Beatles-style where there's a shocking silence after, and Zappa/Swell Maps style where the harsh edit takes you to another chaotic song
Agree the Buzzcocks ones don't fit this; there's another thread where songs are listed where when the singer says stop, the song stops, sixteen should be there if it isn't
― mig (guess that dreams always end), Wednesday, 5 January 2022 18:59 (two years ago) link
"In It for the Money" by Supergrass.
― Kim Kimberly, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 19:22 (two years ago) link
"Red" by XTC.
Don't know if this would also include songs where the coda is a jumble of chaotic noise that suddenly cuts off - it's not as if the song is ending "in the middle". In that case, "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" by Pere Ubu, and "In the Court of the Crimson King".
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 19:28 (two years ago) link
on the pixies thread someone linked to an article where i learned that "where is my mind" ends abruptly because they ran out of tape
― orifex, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 21:10 (two years ago) link
Hit me with your Rhythm Stick
― Mark G, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 21:28 (two years ago) link
Pavement may have taken the Swell Maps cue on tracks like "Jackals, False Grails..."
― i woke up alarmed (morrisp), Wednesday, 5 January 2022 21:34 (two years ago) link
xp "Hit Me" seems to come to a conclusion?
― visiting, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 21:38 (two years ago) link
The Boo Radleys - Wilder
― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin), Wednesday, 5 January 2022 21:42 (two years ago) link
Yeah, Where is my Mind and Dig for Fire are edge cases, not exactly what this thread is looking for but close, and cool endings.
I never trust stories like "we ended it that way because we ran out of tape". That sounds like the songwriter imagining an effect he wants the ending to conjure.
― mig (guess that dreams always end), Wednesday, 5 January 2022 21:47 (two years ago) link
The Fall: "Spectre Versus Rector", "C'n'C – S Mithering", others probably.
― visiting, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 21:50 (two years ago) link
"Knew" by Leila (from Like Weather)
― technopolis, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 21:56 (two years ago) link
"White Car in Germany" by the Associates, which comes to an end before a coda returns and then is stopped abruptly.
― visiting, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 21:58 (two years ago) link
"/BREATH" by Le Butcherettes
― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 22:00 (two years ago) link
Elvis Costello: "Night Rally"
― Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 5 January 2022 22:09 (two years ago) link
More Beatles, same album: Her Majesty
― Hideous Lump, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 22:16 (two years ago) link
SPK - Wars of Islam
And probably many more in the early days of industrial.
― Hideous Lump, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 22:18 (two years ago) link
xp "Hit Me" seems to come to a conclusion?― visiting, Wednesday, January 5, 2022 9:38 PM (forty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
― visiting, Wednesday, January 5, 2022 9:38 PM (forty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
Almost. But.
― Mark G, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 22:23 (two years ago) link
Girls at Our Best! - "Getting Nowhere Fast"His Name Is Alive - "The Other Body"
― ernestp, Thursday, 6 January 2022 00:41 (two years ago) link
Mission of Burma - "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate." Peter Prescott yells just as the tape runs out.
― Chris L, Thursday, 6 January 2022 00:56 (two years ago) link
Unrest, "Soon It Is Going to Rain" (another tape thing)Deerhunter, "He Would Have Laughed"
― sloop johnnin' skater (geoffreyess), Thursday, 6 January 2022 02:48 (two years ago) link
The Downward Spiral has a bunch of these:
Mr. Self DestructHeresyRuinerBig Man With A GunEraserReptile
Other songs sort of have an outtro but either some instruments hard cut on their way out or the remaining guitars or atmospherics of the song just end:
Mr. Self DestructHurt
― octobeard, Thursday, 6 January 2022 02:59 (two years ago) link
Wonder how many songs do the opposite – start up as if the engineer suddenly hit record while the band was already playingRoyal Trux “Teeth” is kind of like that
― i woke up alarmed (morrisp), Thursday, 6 January 2022 03:52 (two years ago) link
The studio version of Neil Young’s “Like a Hurricane” does that.
― Chris L, Thursday, 6 January 2022 04:40 (two years ago) link
Tyler, The Creator does this a bunch, and it seems a big part of why his songs don't feel like radio singles.
― ... (Eazy), Thursday, 6 January 2022 05:03 (two years ago) link
Jandek – "European Jewel" on Ready for the House
― aegis philbin (crüt), Thursday, 6 January 2022 06:15 (two years ago) link
The Smiths - Some girls are bigger than others
― Nabozo, Thursday, 6 January 2022 07:03 (two years ago) link
Every Smiths song ends suddenly, in my house anyway, when some idiot puts them on
― flamboyant goon tie included, Thursday, 6 January 2022 15:19 (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
― flamboyant goon tie included, Thursday, 6 January 2022 15:22 (two years ago) link
Dinosaur Jr, Just Like Heaven
― Xgau Murder Spa (nikola), Thursday, 6 January 2022 16:02 (two years ago) link
xp Kinda relates to Godard et al's editing a few years earlier.
― ... (Eazy), Thursday, 6 January 2022 17:31 (two years ago) link
Stereolab has a bunch of these, some of the ones that immediately come to mind:
Golden BallTransona Five (remastered version added an ending)Space Moment
― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Thursday, 6 January 2022 17:37 (two years ago) link
Nobody's mentioned Sex Pistols "No Fun"?
― Mark G, Thursday, 6 January 2022 18:29 (two years ago) link
I never trust stories like "we ended it that way because we ran out of tape". That sounds like the songwriter imagining an effect he wants the ending to conjure.― mig (guess that dreams always end), Wednesday, January 5, 2022 9:47 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink
― mig (guess that dreams always end), Wednesday, January 5, 2022 9:47 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink
If you track down "Cheryl's coming home" off John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett's album, it really does sound like the tape ran out.
― Mark G, Thursday, 6 January 2022 18:32 (two years ago) link
Talk Talk - “Ascension Day”
― Indexed, Saturday, 8 January 2022 01:40 (two years ago) link
Wonder if any of the Beatles had heard Xenakis's "Bohor", from 1968, which cuts off on record as the roaring reaches a peak, just like "I Want You".
― Halfway there but for you, Saturday, 8 January 2022 02:59 (two years ago) link
Caetano Veloso - Irene stops at 0:45 and starts again at 1:00
― Nabozo, Wednesday, 12 January 2022 08:59 (two years ago) link
yeah, but it's not an abrupt or arbitrary stop, it's some very musical studio chatter at the end of a verse...
jugband blues stops abruptly and resumes, though.
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 12 January 2022 09:05 (two years ago) link
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
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 (one year ago) link