Save the best for last: Albums where the last song is your favorite song on the album

I am pretty sure that "Always Coming Back Home To You" is the best song on Atmosphere's Seven's Travels and I know for a fact that it's my favorite curt on the album. It's actually my favorite Atmosphere song in general and it blows me away that it is relegated to being Track 19.

Which albums have the best song as the last song, or at least your favorite track on the disc?

What are the best last songs on the album around?

Oh, and we can safely limit this to studio full-length releases for obvious reasons.

As often as not, "Cowgirl in the Sand" and "Desolation Row" are my favourite songs on their albums. But not always.

"Clouds Taste Metallic" ends with the forever-awesome "Bad Days".

Dream Attack - Technique

^^^

also for the longest time "Untitled" was my favorite song on Disintegration

King Crimson were really good at this. In the Court, Lark's Tongues, and Red all have killer final tracks that singlehandedly elevate the album to another level.

Orbital also have excellent closers - I don't know what the closer on their debut was actually supposed to be, but "Halycon", "Attached", "Out There Somewhere?", "Style", "Meltdown", "One Perfect Sunrise", and now "Where Is It Going?" are all incredible. Kinda reads like a fan-made greatest hits right there.

Black Dog - "Chesh" and whatever the closer was on Bytes

Pet Shop Boys - "King's Cross" and "Jealousy" (kinda similar tunes now that I think about it)

Simon Bookish - "Colophon"...incredible album altogether but I love when the closer is different than everything else on the album but just as great

Todd Rundgren - "Just One Victory" and "Sons of 1984". But especially the former. How the hell was that not a massive hit??

'You Can Live at Home' off Husker Du's Warehouse: Songs & Stories, last song on their last album

Tomorrow Never Knows - Revolver
A Day in the Life - Sgt Pepper

The Diamond Sea - Washing Machine

I'm starting to remember a lot of epic or meant-to-be-epic last songs on 90's albums. Not all were as great as this.

Amanita is my favorite song on Centipede Hz.
A Day in the Life is my favorite on Sgt. Peppers.
There's Too Much Love on Belle and Sebastian's "Fold your hands child, you walk like a peasant."

"The Most Beautiful World in the World" is my favorite track on "Son of Schmilsson"

"Keep On Chooglin'" -- CCR's Bayou Country.

oh sorry miashtha beat me to a day in the life.

"When I'm out of town" is often my favorite song on Wasps' Nests, mostly because of the part where he says "Don't say it doesn't matter anyway / Because it doesn't matter what you say."

Autechre - "444"

I love the Sun Studios homage at the end of the latest Dirty Projectors record

(Irresponsible Tune, Swing Lo Magellan)

'Small Hours' off John Martyn's One World, still an astonishing track now

DOOD, ECHOES

XTC - The Wheel & The Maypole... by the longest way possible!

I wanted to name "Snowman" as well but English Settlement has so many awesome tunes that I just can't

Oddly enough, "Save the Best for Last" is not the final song on Comfort Zone.

Definitely Dream Attack and Halcyon. The Private Psychedelic Reel was the first one that sprang to mind.

Liars - Drum's Not Dead

always my favorite from the album:

inoj "love you down" is the last track on ready for the world
nicki minaj "super bass" is the last track on some versions of pink friday i think (tho it's a bonus track so idk)
pachanga boys "time" from girlcatcher (not an album but w/e)
perfume "spice" from jpn
the last track on both of sky ferreira's eps is the best one: "108" from as if and "everything is embarrassing" from ghost
tv on the radio "lover's day" from dear science

sometimes my favorite from the album:

title track from ke$ha's animal
passion pit "seaweed song" from manners
vangelis "tears in rain" from blade runner

like, 20% of all albums

"repose in blue" from eluvium's copia also

Liars - Drum's Not Dead

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Thursday, May 30, 2013 12:59 PM (58 minutes ago)

"Fame" on Young Americans

VU - Loaded (oh sweet nuthin)

Bowie - Hunky Dory

it blows me away that it is relegated to being Track 19.

I've always thought last track was a great place to spotlight a song due to recency bias effect

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/94/Serial_position.png

like, 20% of all albums

Possibly more, and deliberately too

Steeky Dan - Countdown To Ecstasy

Steely

I like Steeky

i like Sticky

feel like I gravitate pretty often to the first and last songs as my favorites/most memorable from an album

That's because that's how albums are often designed

10,000 Maniacs, "Verdi Cries"
Al Stewart, "Nostradamus" and "Year of the Cat"
Pink Floyd, "Two Suns in the Sunset"
Swans, "God Damn the Sun"
Tindersticks, "CF GF"
Leonard Cohen, "If It Be Your Will"
Cowboy Junkies, "Those Final Feet"
Cocteau Twins, "Donimo"

and probably loads more

yeah first/last tracks naturally more salient so strong songs there can make a whole album seem better upon recollection

replacements - can't hardly wait

I am not sure it's my favorite on the album but there is no better ending for Meat Beat Manifesto's Satyricon than "Placebo"

Calexico - Hot Rail

women - eyesore

Two albums where the last song's use of slide guitar takes things to another realm:

Roxy Music - "Prairie Rose" on Country Life
Mayo Thompson - "Worried Worried" on Corky's Debt to His Father

tragedy - no words
botch - man the ramparts
deerhunter - he would have laughed
neil young - ambulance blues

The Church, Starfish, "Hotel Womb"
Led Zeppelin, IV, "When the Levee Breaks"
Pixies, Doolittle, "Gouge Away"
Japan, Gentlemen Take Polaroids, "Taking Islands in Africa"

Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited - "Desolation Row"
Ray Charles Modern Sounds in Country & Western - "That Lucky Old Sun"
The Police, Synchronicity - "Tea in the Sahara"
Neil Young, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere - "Cowgirl in the Sand"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKfRTa6kzws

School of Seven Bells - "When You Sing" on Ghostory

"pur" better than "summerhead"? nah. otherwise yeah, fairly OTM.

I don't know if it's better, but it's my favorite. "Summerhead" is great, but it's very similar to "Iceblink Luck".

The Clash - "Train in Vain"

Go-Betweens - "Dive For Your Memory"
Al Green - "Jesus is Waiting"
Pavement - "Fin"

fair enough, LeRoo: i momentarily forgot that this thread is attuned to the peculiarities of individual preference rather than consensus. that's an interesting connection you make between "iceblink" and "summerhead" -- going to line them up back to back right now.

Tom Verlaine--Breakin' In My Heart

i am the resurrection would be my choice.

"Nowhere So Fast" on Black Vinyl Shoes is often my favourite; "I Heard You Looking" on Yo La Tengo's Painful, ditto; "I Wish I Was Your Mother" from Mott, always.

mbv - "I Can See It (But I Can't Feel It)"

I am pretty sure that "Always Coming Back Home To You" is the best song on Atmosphere's Seven's Travels and I know for a fact that it's my favorite curt on the album. It's actually my favorite Atmosphere song in general and it blows me away that it is relegated to being Track 19.

I'd otherwise agree with you, but isn't there a hidden track that comes after "Always Coming Back Home To You"?

The first example to come to my mind is "It Ain't Hard to Tell" from Nas' Illmatic.

i mean it's almost ridiculous to consider it the best song on gaucho given what precedes it but "third world man"

The last two tracks on The Human Abstract album Nocturne (Desiderata + Vela, Together We Await The Storm) are awesome.

Bob Dylan, Rough and Rowdy Ways (it works for either "Key West" or "Murder Most Foul," depending on which you consider the "last song"!).

n.e.r.d - bobby james

Raincoats - "No Looking"

Such a kickass closer...

This is a perfect closer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq4Q69_mdZw

Hmm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7UrdP4wKUw

i see i've posted in here before, but the idea of "the poignant epic last track" has always been a big favorite of mine.

outkast always had great ones. "13 floor/growing old" defines soul to me. definitely an alltimer.

a longtime personal favorite has been "highway song" from the obscure first album by 70s folk pop duo aztec two-step. just feels like a perfect way to end any album.

finally, yes:

'Small Hours' off John Martyn's One World, still an astonishing track now

― dschinghis kraan (NickB), Thursday, May 30, 2013 8:03 AM

and though i agree that it is a classic `last song`, did you know about the discrepancy with the running order?

discogs:

It remains unclear how this was intended to be released. On the rear of the LP sleeve the first track A1 is "Couldn't Love You More". But for some reason many issues have a reversed tracklist. Side A actually being Side B. Other issues have changed / reversed label colour sides. Usual "Day & Night" labels became "Night & Day".

"The sleeve of One World was completed before the album was delivered, hence the odd running order on the back of the sleeve, with the sides in reverse order. For years, many loved the album beginning with Couldn’t Love You More and ending with Big Muff." http://www.johnmartyn.com/sleeve-notes/one-world-deluxe-edition/

Nevertheless all CD issues have "Dealer" as first track.

my old used vinyl copy was one of the ones that put "big muff" as the last track, so that's the only way i knew the album for many years. wasn't until the deluxe edition came out that i realized i had been hearing it in the wrong order!

Thought of another: Aphex Twin, “Nanou2” (final track on Drukqs)

BAD - Stalag 123

"moonlight mile"
"me in honey"
"mutineer"
"harmony"

"... and the day turned to night"

Sunset Village
from Keyboard Fantasies by Beverly Glenn-Copeland

Cargo Culte
from Histoire de Melody Nelson by Serge Gainsbourg

Amsterdam
from Scott by Scott Walker

The Posies - Flood of Sunshine on Dear 23

Unexpected moody epic with amazing spiraling guitar. Very much the O Sweet Nuthin of the album.

MBV - "Soon"

Camp Cope's _How to Socialize & Make Friends_ for "I've Got You"

Peter Gabriel 3

Rapture
The Low End Theory
Wildheart

The La’s “Looking Glass,” an epic Closer with a capital C, where they play snippets of some of the other songs on the album and everything just builds and builds into this joyous crescendo. So amazing that I’d bet Lee Mavers had absolutely nothing to do with it and it was probably all constructed in post-production by producer extraordinaire Steve Lillywhite, the true genius behind the album.

Kinda crazy how Save the Best for Last was actually track 6 on that Vanessa Williams album.

I prefer the In Living Color Parody, "You Can All Kiss My Ass."

'learn to pray' is the best track on '1000 years of trouble' by age of chance.

which after the previous 30 mins of crush collision contains a minimum of noise/samples, and is brilliant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pDSeVjqIkQ

Marion - My Children (last track on This World And Body)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz--UAWoH4w

Back Seat of my Car on RAM elevates it from "very very good solo album" to "rivalling the best of the Beatles' output"

(although you could make a strong case for several other songs on that record)

alvin row - spirit theyre gone spirit theyve vanished - animal collective
sad eyed lady - blonde on blonde - dylan
look on down from the bridge - among my swan - mazzy star
pretty eyes - the natural bridge - silver jews
i can't win - room on fire - strokes

I don't like McCartney's Ram, but I think there are a few good tracks including two great ones, one of which is "Back Street of My Car."

SEAT, not Street

"Age of Innocence" is my favourite Machina track. Still a pretty bad album though.

Lots of good examples here. I'll suggest "Shine On You Crazy Diamond Part IX" from Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd.

I wonder if there is a thread for this:

I hate it when a good album just burns out at the end into nothingness

which makes me think of "Caucasian Lullaby" from Desperate Straights by Slapp Happy / Henry Cow.

“dissident aggressor” on sin after sin by Judas Priest

Sparks "No. 1 Song in Heaven"

Genesis - Duke's Travels + Duke's End

Efterklang - Monument (from Piramida)

i'm ready - on the way - jandek

from the morning - pink moon - nick drake

small hours - one world - john martyn

sorry for 3x post!!!

Smog - "Let Me See The Colts"
(A more salient example than it might have been if my 2005 CD didn't get jittery through the final minute, or stop altogether, depending on the player.)