The Greatest Album Closers Of All Time
A look at the art of creating an impactful ending
This tweet from Touche Amore frontman Jeremy Bolm came across my timeline yesterday and got me thinking.
I’ve always been fascinated with album sequencing, and as he mentions, there’s something about the way an album ends that can either dampen its effect on me as a listener or elevate the entire piece into another stratosphere.
Bolm then crowdsources a list of the greatest albums closers ever, so I thought I would complete the exercise with my top 10 choices and why they work so well.
#10 - “Beggars” from Beggars by Thrice
My list kicks off with a prime example of that aforementioned feeling of release. Thrice has always had a theatrical flair to them, and they close their best record (a hot take for another day) with a title track that encapsulates that so well. It begins as a simple, plodding track, then seems to fray more and more with each passing verse until a final lull of silence erupts into the final death throes of the album. For an exceedingly raw album to end is such a way gives the feeling of true closure in a very satisfying way.
#9 - “And Now I’m Nothing” from Suburbia I’ve Given You All And Now I’m Nothing by The Wonder Years
Since reading the tweet that started this whole exercise, I’ve come to realize how much weight I put into an album having strong sequencing and a powerful ending as part of building a cohesive piece of art, nearly universally gravitating to that over a loose collection of songs. The former isn’t something that is necessarily prevalent among the pop punk genre that has been so foundational to me, but there are certainly instances of bands breaking through. The Wonder Years has quickly evolved into that type of band, a growth that began with their sophomore record and it’s fantastic closer. It doesn’t turn it’s back sonically on what the album has laid out before it, it amplifies everything into a powerful crescendo, building on the striking lyric concept that weaves through the record and wrapping it up so well.
#8 - “The Ocean” from New Wave by Against Me!
New Wave is such a critical album in the Against Me! catalogue, a perfect capsule of all angles the band can bring to the table sonically. And the closing number shows the band at its absolute peak. The triumph of “The Ocean” is the effortless way the band envelopes the listener, seemingly in the waves of the song’s namesake, with an infectious groove and some of their most outright personal lyrics to that point. It’s a dynamic song that builds and builds but never quite reaches the crescendo you think its heading toward, instead choosing to float on to where the waters do not curve.
#7 - “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” from Sound Of Silver by LCD Soundsystem
James Murphy’s love/hate straddling ode to his city is such a change of pace from the rest of Sound Of Silver. The undercurrent of frantic energy and electronic tinge that radiates throughout the record all but disappears in the closer, replaced by bare bones piano ballad. The beautiful, lounge-esque song feels like a throwback to another era and lets Murphy’s words take center stage before flipping the switch and bringing back one more burst of energy, riding out the record on a wave of power that so thoroughly emulates the raw dynamism of live music.
#6 - “Bound 2” from Yeezus by Kanye West
Similar to the last entry, “Bound 2” closes Kanye’s last good (and second best if I’m being honest) album on a starkly different note than the majority of the songs that precede it. But it’s more than that. Looking at Kanye’s discography, there’s a definitive line drawn in the sand between the soul-sample driven first two records and the increasingly ego-centric bombast of his latter records. Yeezus feels like the far reaches of that descent, drenched in striking synthes, sinister effects and an icy aura, so when “Bound 2” rolls around it’s striking. It feels like snapping out of a dream and returning to the soulful sped-up samples of a bygone era. In hindsight we can see that it didn’t really set up the next stage of Kanye’s career like some of his fans thought it might be indicating, and his behavior since has made me wonder whether we’ve always given him too much credit when it comes to the seemingly genius creative choices in his music. But whether it was intended as such or it was just dumb luck, the closer on Yeezus remains such a standout piece in the catalogue.
#5 - “Crow” from A Crow Looked At Me by Mount Eerie
While most of the entries on this list up until now have had some sonic element that amplifies their status, this one is strictly lyrical. Mount Eerie’s devastating masterpiece of grief draws on the same quiet, solitary sound from start to finish, letting Phil Elverum’s flow of words carry the listener. And the closer brings everything to an end in a truly beautiful way, shifting focus to Elverum’s daughter and possibly offering a glimmer of hope amongst the mountain of grief, while exposing the insular nature of extremely personal record that has preceded it to the stark realities of the outside world. This album is certainly a lot to handle at times, but this resolution feels perfect for what has been built before it.
#4 - “Jimmy, He Whispers” from Everything To Nothing by Manchester Orchestra
The choice to end Mean Everything To Nothing in this fashion has always been really interesting to me in that it eschews the route of ending an album on its sonic peak. “The River” has all of those hallmarks as a loud, bombastic moment of catharsis, but rather than ending there Manchester Orchestra slides into a soft, scarce song that lives quietly in the echoes of its predecessor, like how TV shows will often have their dramatic apex in the penultimate episode before digging through the wreckage and resolving in the finale. It’s a deliberate choice and one that brings so much more power to a masterpiece of an album.
#3 - “Virtute At Rest” from Winter Wheat by John K. Samson
It’s the shortest song on the album, clocking in at just 96 seconds, but “Virtute At Rest” does such a wonderful job of threading a concept through not only Winter Wheat, but the rest of The Weakerthans’ discography. There’s something intrinsically enthralling about cohesive, concept-driven albums, not necessarily in the sci-fi, prog, Coheed And Cambria vein, but in a way that makes everything you heard before feel like it fits into a meticulously melded, singular piece of art. The appearance of Samson’s most famous character really drives that home in such a powerful way.
#2 - “Go Home” from Sprained Ankle by Julien Baker
Sprained Ankle is filled wall to wall with emotional sledgehammer hits, which makes it all the more surprising that Baker somehow held the most devastating one for last. On an album marked by a trademark sound of sparse, ethereal guitar, the pounding piano on the closer is jarring change, while Baker’s commanding voice reaches new heights delivering her cutting, self-reflexive lyrics. It’s not a closer that impresses by suddenly switching lanes, it’s a closer that fits so perfectly within the world that Baker creates on this album.
#1 - “Hold Me Down” from Commit This To Memory by Motion City Soundtrack
The making of this list featured a lot of searching through albums for candidates, whittling down songs and rearranging the final order. But there was one closer that immediately popped into my head reading the inciting tweet, a song that had the number-one spot wrapped up from the very beginning. Motion City Soundtrack is one of my favorite bands of all time, Commit This To Memory is my favorite album of theirs and “Hold Me Down” is unequivocally the greatest album closer in my eyes. It’s a beautifully written song featuring Justin Pierre’s penchant for combining vivid, personal storytelling with a sprawling slew of memorable lines. It rolls along in a swelling fashion that delivers a final catharsis in the waning moments before ending the album on a muted note. It’s a perfect bookend for the trip through Pierre’s fragile psyche that the listener just went on.