fade out or end

sleeper wrote: thehallway wrote: Prometej wrote: I don't mind fade-out, and I never really quite understood why people get so bent out-of-shape over them.  As long it's not just a sloppily-done afterthought, there's nothing inherently musically offensive about a fade-out to end a song. Exactly. So people, please stop referring to anything that isn't a fade-out as a "proper ending".......... you might as well say that any chord sequences you don't like aren't "proper" chords, or that bad lyrics aren't "proper lyrics". The demand by fans on any music with the word 'progressive' attached to it, which is never attached by the musicians themselves anyway, is getting ridiculously high.  No, I'll still refer to anything with a fade out as a cop out. The main reason I dont like them is that there's nothing remotely interesting about a fade-out, I just cant help wondering "what could have been done there to make it more effective". And I aply this to all genres of music, why do you assume that I only apply it to prog?

I don't make that assumption........ but I've seen in this forum the other expectations people make regarding prog music, and this only adds to it........ hence my comment about the high demand on prog. 

As for the question   "what could have been done there to make it more effective?"....... well, that question can be asked about any element or section of a song....... the beginning, middle, or end. Even something seemingly perfect to one person won't please everyone. So, picking on the fade-out in particular seems random, if your only criticism is that there might have been a better way of doing it, because that very well applies to most parts of most songs. ...............And I'm pretty sure that when an artist can answer that question, they proceed to improve their composition. So, what about considering the fact that a fade-out isn't always, without question, evidence of the artist not being able to improve..... but rather that the fade-out may well be the artist's answer to the question. Because unlike you, the artists probable doesn't unconditionally categorise the fade-out as a cop-out, but may see it as a perfectly viable artistic decision, and one that may even improve upon an abrupt or "proper" ending.