[potsie]

I was thinking the other day about how *dark* this album is, thematically.

-"Place" - > a warped, ambiguous take on First Contact, what with murder and garbage bag trees, ominous at least for the "ancient race"
-"Pigeon" -> whether or not there is enough textual info here to say for sure that the song concerns incest, the subtext is indeed "horrific"
-'Trunk" -> cheerful mass murder, what more can ya say
-"Cap" -> the Leafs fans think it's a celebration of their POS franchise, but in fact it's about death and immolation in the Canadian wilderness - nice
-"Wheat kings" -> massive injustice by an indifferent nation, not exactly "Sunshine on my Shoulder"
-"Wherewithal" -> poor ol' Richard, eternally interrupted and doomed; his greatest achievement is getting out before...something.

I'm not going to say it's the darkest Hip album, but offhand I'd have to say it's markedly darker than their work would typically be after DFN, and it's certainly a more unsettling emotional landscape than that which marked the previous albums (not that those were all happy happy either). At a certain point, Gord starting singing more about relationships than about predation, disaster, and death, and while it made for a warmer lyrical palette, it perhaps never became as visceral as this sort of stuff.

It is a very dark album but I believe that sometimes gets overlooked because the music (excepting Locked) doesn't quite match the lyrical gloom. Whereas on DFN, an album of unrelentingly dark themes, the music contributes an atmosphere of inkiness as well. FC contains a song with pleasant loon calls while DFN salts a song (Emergency) with the sound of a dreary rainfall. So while similarly unsettling in the lyrical sense, one can be played at a party and one can't.

[senrab]

Happy 25th, FC

[potsie]

Happy 25th, FC

I'm not sure how that number makes me feel... maybe a touch of wistfulness, a touch of nostalgia.

[potsie]

I was listening to The Police this morning, specifically "Every Breath You Take", which got me thinking about songs that fade out. Shane and others have commented that they are not a fan of the end of "Locked" and the way it fades out. I agree... I'm also not a fan of fade outs. When it comes to "Locked" Tsangarides turns down the volume just as Rob is heating up. In fact, I've found myself occasionally doing the opposite in my car... turning up the volume as the song fades out just so I can wring every last drop out of that outro solo. I would have loved that to go on for another 20-30 seconds before coming to a cold end. A fade makes sense if a band can't figure out how to end a song in the studio but the Hip knew when they were recording "Locked" that they were going to be playing it live and would have to figure out how to bring it in for a landing. So why not do that on record?

Then I heard the fade out of "Every Breath" today and it made me think I could make an argument that, although sonically it is a shame that "Locked" fades out, thematically it works. "Every Breath" is often mistaken to be a gentle love song detailing a lover's positive vow to always be there for their partner. The true meaning is one of obsession, and the aftermath of a love lost in which jealously and surveillance follow. In the fade out Sting sings "Every move you make, Every vow you break, Every smile you fake, Every claim you stake, I'll be watching you, Every…" which gives the listener the feeling that this isn't going to end (either in the positive or negative sense, whichever interpretation you prefer). To end abruptly would run counter to the feel of the song, which is that this is going to go on and on.

I was wondering if this could also be applied to "Locked". I'm going to ignore the common FLQ interpretation, as it doesn't fit for me, and go with the other occasionally espoused theory of the song about being about a serial killer. The greatest fear generated by a serial killer is one that the killing hasn't stopped. This is what grips the public. The refrain of "Let me out!" at the end of the song gives the feeling that there is a fresh victim in the killer's car and the serial killer is still on the prowl. Rather than abruptly end the song, which might be interpreted to mean that (to borrow a line) "the horror has finally ceased", the song doesn't truly end as the ending of this story hasn't yet been written. The fade out leaves us with the sinister feeling that the killing will continue, as opposed to a cold end which could signify that the killing has ended. Just a thought...

[Killer Whale Tank]

potsie, that's good analysis. The fade out makes perfect sense.

But then, some sort of all-encompassing bias against fade-outs just seems weird to me, since I have no problem at all with fade-outs, any more than fade-ins. Who cares? Do you want to listen to 'I Am the Walrus' - one of the most incredible recordings ever made, period - and tell me the fade out sucks? This really seems to me a non-problem.

[gsmacleod]

potsie, that's good analysis. The fade out makes perfect sense.

But then, some sort of all-encompassing bias against fade-outs just seems weird to me, since I have no problem at all with fade-outs, any more than fade-ins. Who cares? Do you want to listen to 'I Am the Walrus' - one of the most incredible recordings ever made, period - and tell me the fade out sucks? This really seems to me a non-problem.

Agreed the analysis makes sense and I'm off to listen to Locked in view of this.

However, I usually feel that a fade out is just an easy way to end a song when you have no idea what to do. In some cases it works but it many cases it feels like the end of the Sopranos.

Shane

[potsie]

potsie, that's good analysis. The fade out makes perfect sense.

But then, some sort of all-encompassing bias against fade-outs just seems weird to me, since I have no problem at all with fade-outs, any more than fade-ins. Who cares? Do you want to listen to 'I Am the Walrus' - one of the most incredible recordings ever made, period - and tell me the fade out sucks? This really seems to me a non-problem.

I don't have an all encompassing bias against fade-outs, just a preference for the closure that a cold ending brings. Almost everything in the Beatles early career had a cold end to it and it wasn't until they started dabbling more in studio experimentation, without the burden of having to figure out how they were going to play it live, that they employed fade-outs. "Hey Jude" is another good example of a Beatles fade out and the fade out works on this simply due to the fact that there is nothing but repetition at the end.

In almost all fade-outs, I want to hear what is happening musically. As I mentioned above, the fade-out on Locked means that I've lost the enjoyment of hearing some of Rob's work at a high volume. If you turn up the fade-out on Locked, there is some good work going on there. Why turn the volume down and fade it out? So, if I'm forced to explain my bias against fade outs, it's the loss of enjoyment of hearing what is going on musically at the end.

[potsie]

potsie, that's good analysis. The fade out makes perfect sense.

But then, some sort of all-encompassing bias against fade-outs just seems weird to me, since I have no problem at all with fade-outs, any more than fade-ins. Who cares? Do you want to listen to 'I Am the Walrus' - one of the most incredible recordings ever made, period - and tell me the fade out sucks? This really seems to me a non-problem.

Agreed the analysis makes sense and I'm off to listen to Locked in view of this.

However, I usually feel that a fade out is just an easy way to end a song when you have no idea what to do. In some cases it works but it many cases it feels like the end of the Sopranos.

Shane

Exactly... a fade out can be a cop out, Sopranos being a great example.

[potsie]

... This really seems to me a non-problem.

Discussion of "non-problems" in music is right up my alley. It's not as much fun to point out the more obvious "problems"!

[Killer Whale Tank]

I just don't see why it's a cop out. It's not as though ending a song is hard to do; concert performances do it all the time, and there are only a few variations on the basic trick. So I doubt a band is sitting there going, 'gee, how to end this??' What a fade out accomplishes is the suggestion of indefinite continuation of whatever world the song is laying out. Yes, sometimes this seems like the wrong tone to set. Every now and then, it is indeed a studio move designed to disguise a mistake or a breakdown towards the end of the track. But it's often evocative and, indeed, sometimes far more evocative than a full stop.

Some of the greatest songs in popular music fade out. 'Hotel California.' 'Like a Rolling Stone.' 'Satisfaction.' 'Cortez the Killer.' All of this is a cop out? Give me a break.

Sopranos was not, incidentally, a fade out. It was a sudden cut to black. I've always thought that a TRUE fade - freezing the frame on Gandolfini's face, then slowly dissolving it out as the music starts playing - would have worked MUCH better, serving as a visual representation of the likely fate laid out for him in the story itself (he's set to be indicted, and is most probably looking at a drawn-out court process followed by life in prison, where he will dwindle to powerlessness and irrelevance, as we saw happen earlier in the series with Johnny Sack and even Uncle Junior). It would have harmonized perfectly with the song, too, foreshadowing Tony's inevitable state of mind as he denies his own disintegration. Chase went for shock value and blew the final frame of what was otherwise a terrific final episode.

[potsie]

Some of the greatest songs in popular music fade out. 'Hotel California.' 'Like a Rolling Stone.' 'Satisfaction.' 'Cortez the Killer.' All of this is a cop out? Give me a break.

You are making broad generalizations here and are also trying to equate the quality of the song with how it is ended, something I haven't done. Of course it's not all a "cop out". These are all amazing songs, no matter the ending. What is really being debated here is a "non-problem"; a "preference" for how a song is ended. I have a simple preference for a stronger closing. For most of those songs you've listed, I prefer how they are closed out in a live setting. I'm just questioning why that couldn't have been done on record.

In some instances, as I discussed in my post on the fade out of "Locked" (and as you've alluded to above), it makes sense to fade out from a thematic perspective. I think this could be applied to Hotel California: the lines "You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave", just before Felder and Walsh start trading solos into the fade, suggest a continuation of the story. And maybe the fade works well in that sense. For me, however, I dislike the fact that the producer has turned down the volume on one of the greatest guitar solos of all-time. Imagine if you were watching Hotel California in a live setting (or Locked in the Trunk, for that matter) and the man at the sound board just faded out the song instead of allowing the band to bring it to a close. That would be very unsatisfying, and on the album it's only slightly less so.

When it comes to how I enjoy musical endings, the sonic aesthetic takes precedence over the more cerebral aspect of thematic fit. I love how Cordelia comes to a finish, Little Bones or Locked (even though I can justify it), not as much.

I just don't see why it's a cop out.

I'm referring more to the Soprano's ending with this term, not necessarily any of the music discussed above. Fade out, fade to black, cut to black, whatever you want to call it, it was a cop out to end the series that way. Your proposal would have worked better.

[andrew sharpe]

the sonic aesthetic takes precedence over the more cerebral aspect of thematic fit

This. Fading out that solo was a bad production choice. Imagine fading out GD mid verse. No matter how it fit the metaphor, it would still be annoying.

Yoko Ono's music is very artistic...and even more unpleasant to listen to.

[potsie]

I came across a Michael Barclay interview discussing Fully Completely. While the interview is not overly insightful (there is a re-hashing of the Bill Barilko story, for instance) there is an interesting recounting of a story about the loon sample the Hip used on Wheat Kings and how it got the Hip in some trouble. This story was new to me. For those that might be interested, 19:18 to 22:15 for the story about the loon, 10:56-24:30 for the whole Barclay interview (again, the overall interview is not what I would consider required listening).

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