Sometimes it ends with a Goodbye,
Sometimes it ends with a Dream,
Sometimes it ends with an Afterglow,
And sometimes it ends with Suicide, albeit the Rock ‘n’ Roll type.
Studio albums can be the most creative art an artist puts out, and it’s not just because of the music. From album art to unlisted tracks, there are many opportunities to showcase art outside of the songs.
I personally believe that the beginning and ending to an album can be just as much part of the experience of the album as the songs are. Two of my favorite ways to end an album are when an album has an overall sad tone to it, add an overpoweringly happy song at the end (my favorite example of this being Blue Moves by Elton
John) and ending an album with a reprise to the first track as per Duke by Genesis, really summing the album up.
Truly listening to an album from start to finish might be worth it. There might be so much more to it than just the songs. Unfortunately, more recent albums sometimes don’t incorperate this type of art into their albums because there is a much more poor chance that someone will listen through an album beginning to end just because with a free account on Spotify (for example) you could listen to any song ever made with the click of a button. When you buy physical albums, you usually believe that, like with everything, you should get your money’s worth. That usually requires listening to all of which the album has to offer.
Hopefully it ends well outside of music…