Favorite way to end a song?
 

What kind of ending do you like in a song?

Fade to Black Method-

Where the song continues forever but slowly fades in volume until you hear silence.


Dead Stop

Where the song just quits, or has a little drum riff and dies.


The Fake Ending

Where it does a Dead Stop, then a couple seconds later slams into you for a few more seconds then dies.


If done well I prefer the Fake Ending, but I also like a well done Dead Stop. FTB is kinda repetitive and just draws out a song for no reason.

How about you? Feel free to add your own type of ending as well.

the dropoff...


build, build, build, build, build until your headbanging like motherfucking nobody's business. and then boom end.

if done right, and in the right mood, it feels like you hit a brick wall. you feel something in you change or snap or something, and it leaves you wanting more, more more more!

Beethoven knew how to end a piece !!!

Dead Stop. Nine Inch Nails always pulled this off perfectly.

Dead stop. I've always disliked the fade to black method. Makes me feel like I'm missing out on the rest of the song. :)

TBMSS

the beat match stop start

when d.j.'s are throwin it down, instead of slowly fading one song into another, they match the beat and the one song stops and the other starts....hard to do but very impressive

I think fade to black is just shoddy songwriting. I like the dead stop :D

I kind of like the guitar dropping on the stage and the drum riser getting shoved over

Fade to Black is just an excuse for not writing a better way to end the song.
And then being lit on fire.

Dead stop. Fading out seems like a cop out, and makes playing it live awkward.

Dead stop or fake ending followed by a dead stop, for sure. I LOATHE songs which fade out... Its so.. 1980's!

Fade out is only good if it's crossfading into another song a la Dark Side of the Moon

The Outro- 5 or 10 seconds of something that is different from the rest of the song, but puts a solid ending on it.

I liked Mudvayne's Fade-To-Black-to-Fake Ending-to Dead Stop in "Skrying". The song fades out...and then comes back, then stops dead with a drum hit and a bass slide.

Fade to black.. cheap way out. Anything else is fine with me!

kid606 ends his album "action packed mentalist brings you the fucking jams" in a interesting way...
the song has him (or someone) singing the lyrics to radiohead's creep over an acappella barbershop quartet/doo wop kind of thing
with fuzzy scratchy noises in the background
and when he finishes the song, "i dont belong here..." he loops that, increasing the volume each time
by the 30th time it so distorted and loud, and with all the fuzzy noises crackling in the background... you oughta hear it..

the song is called "this is not my statement"

I really dislike the fade out endings, but I do like it the when one song ends and fades right into the next song. Example with the Tool songs Parabol & Parabola.

Dead stop works for me.

i personally like it when the song ends then there's about a minute and a half of feedback and noise, then maybe something gets broken.

if i ever get back into a band... i'm going to end every song with the word "fuck".

but that's just me... :-)

Tried this one, but it doesn't work so well with a swing band.

Given that, I like the Count Basie "April in Paris" ending. Big climax, then Count saying "One more time" another big climax then Count "One more once" and bigger climax.

I go for the fake stop, but it has to be done well.
I also like the dead stop,
but I think that the FTB has a (very fucking small) place too.

Dead stop for sure. In fact the "fade to black" method is on of my pet-peeves. Same thing goes for the begining of the song, I hate tons of music before you get to the lyrics.

Go back to Polyphobic's comment I quoted at the top of my post. This is the idea. You feel like you're missing out, the song isn't complete, and you put another nickel in the jukebox to keep the music going.