Fades of Grey

I was listening to Haim’s “Days are Gone” and Samantha Fox’s self-titled album on the same “car trip” (i.e., “traffic jam”) the other day when a realization struck me: when did songs stop using the slow fade-out to cue the listener that they are about to end? That technique seemed to be fairly commonplace in the 1980s (with some exceptions, which are always there to test the “rule”), but not so much (if at all) today.

I’m not sure which I prefer, the slow fade or the abrupt end… whether in songs or life in general. I had personally experienced the abrupt one, and am now painfully witnessing a loved one going through a slow fade. In both cases, the ending isn’t so obvious.