Albums that loop back into themselves.

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I'm trying to come up with a list of albums that meet the following criteria:

The end of the last song is meant to cycle / continue into the beginning of the first song. The only two examples of this that I'm aware of are 'Spilt Milk' by Jellyfish (The strings from the end continue in the beginning of the first song) and 'The Wall' by Pink Floyd ("...we came in?" at the beginning, "Isn't this where..." at the end).

Sort of a weird request I guess, but does anyone know of any other examples?

― Adam Kempa, Thursday, 13 January 2005 19:05 (twenty years ago)

This may be a bit of a stretch, but the Rentals' first album, 'Return of the Rentals' begins with moog white noise swooshes and ends with them, too, so IN THEORY it could be looped.

― mat, Thursday, 13 January 2005 19:07 (twenty years ago)

Jim O'Rourke's "Thirty Minute Raven" does it too.

― mrjosh (mrjosh), Thursday, 13 January 2005 19:13 (twenty years ago)

pluramon's "dreams top rock"

― a, Thursday, 13 January 2005 19:17 (twenty years ago)

This Heat. first record.

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Thursday, 13 January 2005 19:18 (twenty years ago)

Wings, Band on the Run, sorta: "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five" concludes with a brief reprise loop back into "Band"'s refrain.

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Thursday, 13 January 2005 19:20 (twenty years ago)

Scary Monsters starts and closes with "It's No Game". Not sure that renders it elligible for this, though.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 13 January 2005 19:22 (twenty years ago)

Similarly, Cornershop's "Woman's Gotta Have It" begins and ends with versions of "Jullandar Shere".

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Thursday, 13 January 2005 19:22 (twenty years ago)

I can't remember, but does Afghan Whigs' Gentlemen do this as well?

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Thursday, 13 January 2005 19:45 (twenty years ago)

Sondre Lerche's second record picks right up where the end of the first record left off. Not the same, but close, and it's pretty cool.

― caspar (caspar), Thursday, 13 January 2005 19:48 (twenty years ago)

Paul's Boutique

― mucho, Thursday, 13 January 2005 19:49 (twenty years ago)

'Spilt Milk' by Jellyfish (The strings from the end continue in the beginning of the first song)

Weird I never noticed that. Then again, that's one of those albums that kinda loses steam as it goes on IMO, so I think I must tune out the last half of it if I don't turn it off and put something else on altogether.

― martin m. (mushrush), Thursday, 13 January 2005 19:50 (twenty years ago)

Get Happy!! had some different side-sequencing on the cover and on the little label on the LP, which always made me think of it as some kind of Mobius strip.

― Ken L (Ken L), Thursday, 13 January 2005 19:52 (twenty years ago)

Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" owns this thread.

also, "The Lexicon of Love" closes with the orchestral refrain from "The Look of Love".

― darren (darren), Thursday, 13 January 2005 20:02 (twenty years ago)

And of course there's our own dear Momus with the legend that is "Tender Pervert".

― darren (darren), Thursday, 13 January 2005 20:04 (twenty years ago)

Every record should do this. Really.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 13 January 2005 23:08 (twenty years ago)

D-D-D-Don't Stop the beat

― Mike O. (Mike Ouderkirk), Thursday, 13 January 2005 23:09 (twenty years ago)

Ted Leo's The Tyranny of Distance does this too, although I'm thinking the song that starts up at the end of the album isn't track 1, but it probably actually is.

― Mike O. (Mike Ouderkirk), Thursday, 13 January 2005 23:10 (twenty years ago)

Radiohead - OK Computer ("Hey man, slow down..." as in the car is driving way too fast, then when you start the CD over again, the narrtor gets into an accident and miraculously survives: "I'm amazed that I survived. An airbag saved my life.")

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Thursday, 13 January 2005 23:16 (twenty years ago)

Woah, heavy!!

― Mike O. (Mike Ouderkirk), Thursday, 13 January 2005 23:17 (twenty years ago)

Orbital - Brown Album
Oval - 94 Diskont
Melt Banana - Cell Scape (a little)

I'm sure I've missed your point slightly....

― itchy crabs, Thursday, 13 January 2005 23:53 (twenty years ago)

one of those Harry Pussy 7"s

― Snappy (sexyDancer), Friday, 14 January 2005 00:08 (twenty years ago)

I've often though that, lyrically speaking, The Mountain Goats Sweden does this. With the narrators reversing roles at the end of "Cold Milk Bottle" and thus "The Recognition Scene" would begin the story again, though with the opposite person in the relationship cycling through the songs.

Of course that is probably not correct in the least.

― cws (cws), Friday, 14 January 2005 00:18 (twenty years ago)

How's this for lowering the bar on this thread: Agnetha Faltskog's latest solo effort, "My Colouring Book." The U2-esque shimmy-wah-wah that closes the thing also opens it.

― mottdeterre (mottdeterre), Friday, 14 January 2005 00:22 (twenty years ago)

Marilyn Manson's Antichrist Superstar kinda does this. the spoken word stuff on the secret track at the end continues in the first few secs of track 1.

― pinder (pinder), Friday, 14 January 2005 00:42 (twenty years ago)

Does Snorah's "Come Away With Me" count? When you sustain a key, a tempo, a conceit, and an attack (or lack thereof) for an entire album, whose to say where it begins or ends.

― mottdeterre (mottdeterre), Friday, 14 January 2005 01:00 (twenty years ago)

she's like a granola Neu?

― Snappy (sexyDancer), Friday, 14 January 2005 01:01 (twenty years ago)

Pinback's Summer in Abaddon does this very well.

― donut christ (donut), Friday, 14 January 2005 01:02 (twenty years ago)

>>she's like a granola Neu?

Ooh, I like that! Neu-ah Jones! But then, granola has crunch....

― mottdeterre (mottdeterre), Friday, 14 January 2005 01:04 (twenty years ago)

yoplait

― Snappy (sexyDancer), Friday, 14 January 2005 01:06 (twenty years ago)

Doesn't Lovely Lindsey Buckingham's "Go Insane" do this? I know that it picks up exactly on side two where it left off on side one. (Note to ILMers: there used to be these things called records, and you had to pick them up and flip them over...)

― mottdeterre (mottdeterre), Friday, 14 January 2005 01:06 (twenty years ago)

Rufus Wainwright's Poses kinda does, as the reprise of "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" is so inconsequential, it might as well just be the same track twice.

― Mike O. (Mike Ouderkirk), Friday, 14 January 2005 01:07 (twenty years ago)

Eric Johnson's second album Ah Via Musicom starts with the sounds from the end of his first album Tones. He does the same thing with the start of the third record Venus Isle and the end of the second record.

― Edward Bax (EdBax), Friday, 14 January 2005 01:32 (twenty years ago)

sorta kinda Voodoo by D'Angelo

― quasmarlemeu, Friday, 14 January 2005 01:36 (twenty years ago)

ghosts don't have bones by tolchock trio
you think you really know me by gary wilson
come on die young by mogwai (maybe)
finally we are no one by mum (maybe?)

― rssgnol, Friday, 14 January 2005 02:13 (twenty years ago)

I think that Cornelius - Fantasma, and "a different lifetime" by Spearmint fit into this too

― randy mamola, Friday, 14 January 2005 02:18 (twenty years ago)

If one track albums count:
Vexations--Erik Satie
E2-E4-Manuel Goettsching

Basically both are repetitive patterns that could ostensibly loop forever--in the case of "Vexations" for 28 hours.

― William Selman, Friday, 14 January 2005 02:52 (twenty years ago)

Add 69/96 and Point to ROCnelius.
Prince Paul - A Prince Among Thieves (though the final track offsets this slightly)

― Captain GRRRios' Giggletits (Barima), Friday, 14 January 2005 03:36 (twenty years ago)

If one track albums count:

Steve Reich - Music for 18 Musicians

― itchy crabs, Friday, 14 January 2005 03:39 (twenty years ago)

Andrew WK-The Wolf

― michaeln (kid loki), Friday, 14 January 2005 03:43 (twenty years ago)

It's weird how I've never had an urge to check out The Wolf, despite I Get Wet being one of my favorite records of the past few years.

― Mike O. (Mike Ouderkirk), Friday, 14 January 2005 03:54 (twenty years ago)

Actually it's not that weird now that I think about it.

― Mike O. (Mike Ouderkirk), Friday, 14 January 2005 03:55 (twenty years ago)

xpost

It's not as consistently great as I Get Wet, but it's got five or six amazing tracks (four of those being the final four on the record, oddly).

― michaeln (kid loki), Friday, 14 January 2005 04:30 (twenty years ago)

(And the very last song on the record is, coincidentally or not, called "I Love Music.")

― michaeln (kid loki), Friday, 14 January 2005 04:31 (twenty years ago)

The record that I really wish did this: There's a Riot Goin' On.

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Friday, 14 January 2005 04:40 (twenty years ago)

Since I Left You, more or less. And Pink Floyd's Animals.

― What's this place, Biblevania? (natepatrin), Friday, 14 January 2005 05:01 (twenty years ago)

Ween - The Mollusk (reprises the piano melody from "Dancing in the Show Tonight")

― Mr. Snrub, Friday, 14 January 2005 05:09 (twenty years ago)

uhm

Alphaville - Afternoons in Utopia

― (Jon L), Friday, 14 January 2005 06:34 (twenty years ago)

Marilyn Manson's "Holy Wood" does this for real, beginning and ending with the sounds of distant fireworks and Russian Roulette. There's probably some projected cyclical plot thing going on too.

I'd dispute 69/96; at least on the CD, because the 83 or whatever bonus tracks mess up the continuity.

― boonlert, Friday, 14 January 2005 06:44 (twenty years ago)

Variations on the theme (or, will it go ’round in circles?):

REM's third outing -- when it was first released as a slab o' vinyl -- had a jacket that was laid out in such a way that the title of the thing was an endless mobius strip: Fables of the Reconstruction of the Fables of the Reconstruction of the... (you get the idea).

Don't remember the name of the artist or the cd, but s a friend shared something recently. Someone released a cd where portions of the plastic coating had been warped and woofed in such a way that the laser would skip randomly through the thing picking up sounds hither, thither and yon. All I remember was that there was a puzzle piece glued on the back of the jewel case.

Also, someone who knows hiphop better than I do surely can cite an album that samples from its own earlier tracks. I mean, the idea's too good for someone not to have thought of it before. And if not, someone get me to the studio quick!

― mottdeterre (mottdeterre), Friday, 14 January 2005 07:21 (twenty years ago)

Hither, thither and yon.

― Grand Epic (Grand Epic), Friday, 14 January 2005 08:52 (twenty years ago)

I think that Cornelius - Fantasma, and "a different lifetime" by Spearmint fit into this too

NEVER say those two names in the same sentence again! You're right re: the former, though.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Friday, 14 January 2005 09:04 (twenty years ago)

On Buhloone Mindstate, De La sample a Maceo Parker riff from earlier track "I Be Blowin" on "I am I be". It's wonderful.

― Shmool McShmool (shmuel), Friday, 14 January 2005 09:20 (twenty years ago)

Variation: records which loop but have the key track added on at the end - Sgt Pepper and SMiLE.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 14 January 2005 09:22 (twenty years ago)

Escalator Over The Hill would also loop back on itself except it has the "Hotel Overture" at the beginning.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 14 January 2005 09:26 (twenty years ago)

plus Pepper has a lockgroove loop at the end end (on wax that is)

― Snappy (sexyDancer), Friday, 14 January 2005 16:05 (twenty years ago)

Cornelius again: Flipper's Guitar - Dr Head's World Tower (ends with opener 'Dolphin Song' in reverse, played over the outro of 'The World Tower')

― Captain GRRRios' Giggletits (Barima), Friday, 14 January 2005 16:07 (twenty years ago)

Howabout that Supersuckers album CD, the final track was a repeat of all the previous tracks...?

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 14 January 2005 16:08 (twenty years ago)

Endtroducing...

― Miles Finch, Friday, 14 January 2005 16:10 (twenty years ago)

Trans-Europe Express-Kraftwerk.
Starts with "Europe Endless" and ends with "Endless Endless" which while not the same music segue into one another very well and are nominally connected.

― William Selman, Friday, 14 January 2005 16:37 (twenty years ago)

The United States of America album's final track is a tape-snippet collage of pieces of all the other tracks on the album -- and this was from the pre-sampler era!

― mottdeterre (mottdeterre), Friday, 14 January 2005 17:24 (twenty years ago)

>>Hither, thither and yon.

Little known folk group from the '60s: Bill Hither, Heather Thither and Yakamo Yon. Almost had a hit with "Puff the Magic Marker." You can see Heather Thither's zither at the Hard Rock Cafe Express in a strip mall in Molene, IL.

― mottdeterre (mottdeterre), Friday, 14 January 2005 17:28 (twenty years ago)

i always though This Heat's Deceit did this.

― thank god i ain't too cool for the safe belt (smile), Friday, 14 January 2005 17:50 (twenty years ago)

thought*

― thank god i ain't too cool for the safe belt (smile), Friday, 14 January 2005 17:51 (twenty years ago)

Pedro's album from 2003.

― Captain GRRRios' Giggletits (Barima), Friday, 14 January 2005 18:21 (twenty years ago)

More here: Albums opening and closing with the same songs (sort of)

― Orange, Friday, 14 January 2005 18:41 (twenty years ago)

Hell, I don't know... I have quite a few of those albums [above] and I'll have to go and check them out just to verify what others think, let alone come up with any more... "What's Going On" definitely... was putting it into iTunes the other day and had to jion the whole damn album together... It's just not made to be split up by some clever software... same goes for Skinnyman's "Council Estate Of Mind" [that made it the USA yet?]... Noy really an appropriate addition to this string but... makes you think about the randomness of shuffle play and the effect on the way you listen to albums... Good log about this at cityofsound.com

― Steve Wilde, Wednesday, 26 January 2005 23:18 (twenty years ago)

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