Ten Of My Favorite Album Closers Of All Time

Posted On June 10, 2021

Samantha Colleran, June 2021

I talked about some of my favorite album openers last week, and it got me thinking about some of my favorite tracks that close albums. Album closers end the journey of listening to an album, they leave you wanting more while simultaneously processing everything you had just listened to. Sometimes the album closers will end on a high note, almost as if it were the start of the album, while others end so perfectly you can’t think of a better way to put an end to all the tracks you listened to prior to the closer. So, without further ado, here are some of my favorite album closers. As always I did not put these in a particular order, and please feel free to drop your favorite album closers in the comments!

“Truce” (Vessel), Twenty One Pilots

This song is a really special one. It perfectly sums up the entire album, as stated by Tyler Joseph (lead singer) himself. The album was titled Vessel because “a vessel carries something that’s important but the outward shell of a vessel isn’t necessarily that important. The theory behind that is our bodies are going to die…but what we have inside of us is much more important than that…”. This song is the perfect way to end an album with a message such as this one. The lyrics of “Truce” carry so much meaning; the entirety of Vessel speaks on Tyler and Josh (Dun, drummer)’s struggles with mental health, and the weight of the simple “Stay alive for me” is enough to encourage anyone to carry on, watch the sun rise, and try again. Overcoming your demons, no matter how big or small, is hard. Vessel, and “Truce” specifically, serve as a reminder of that fact. The piano instrumental is soft, while Tyler’s vocals are prominent, which makes it feel almost as if he’s singing directly to the listener. It’s a simple track, yet so, so beautiful.

“In The Lap Of The Gods… Revisited” (Sheer Heart Attack), Queen

One of the most incredible songs from the best Queen album of all time. It’s a powerhouse anthem allegedly about Freddie trying to convince his parents that he’d be successful as a musician and them not fully believing in his dream; but we’ll never actually know the true meaning since Freddie always said he wanted listeners to interpret his lyrics in their own ways. The first verse sees Freddie questioning a decision, and if we look at it through the lens of the previously mentioned situation, it does make a lot of sense. Freddie croons about his struggle to decide his fate; does he risk everything to take on a rockstar life that could possibly fail? Does he listen to his parents’ wish to pursue a more typical job and earn a solid income? “I can see what you want me to be,” Freddie sings multiple times throughout the song, “but that’s not true”. We all know what he ultimately decided to do, but the success of Queen and Freddie would all be up to fate, left “in the lap of the gods”. You’ll find yourself getting swept up in the choruses of “Whoa whoa, la-la-la, whoa”, it’s almost as if it’s meant to close a show and be sung in a stadium of thousands upon thousands of people. A lot of people find the song too repetitive, but I can listen to it for hours. The explosion at the end is also a pretty sick way to end the entire album, it feels like an epic mic drop. 

“Fine Line” (Fine Line), Harry Styles

I talk about Harry a lot here, but “Fine Line” is such an incredible album closer, excluding it from this list would have been a crime. “Fine Line” perfectly sums up the entire album, which is why I can only assume Harry decided to name the album after this track. We draw on elements from previous songs and build upon them; the repetition of Harry belting out “We’ll be alright” feels like a callback to the rawness of the screams in “Cherry”, the vulnerability showcased in tracks like “Golden” and “Lights Up”, the stubbornness in the lyrics of “To Be So Lonely”, the sickeningly sweet love sung about in “Adore You”. We start off slow and at the highest point of Harry’s vocal range, and blossom into this beautiful orchestra of instruments. You can feel all the pain, heartbreak, and love spill out in the vocals. The final piano notes leave you thinking about everything you listened to from the top of the album all the way to those final seconds of “Fine Line”, it makes you wish that wasn’t the end, but it also proves that there was simply no better way to end this album than with this six minutes and 17 seconds of pure art. I also firmly believe ending the album with the words “We’ll be alright” is such a comforting thing, it can be applied to anything in life and I find myself thinking of those three words on a daily basis. 

“Home” (Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace), Foo Fighters

This is one of my favorite Foo Fighters songs to ever exist on my favorite Foos album ever created. It’s a tearjerker and strays away from the hard rock sound the Foos are so well known for. Dave has said on multiple occasions he can’t perform it live, it makes him as well as the rest of the band far too emotional, especially after being on the road away from their families for so long. “Wish I were with you/ But I couldn’t stay/ Every direction/ Leads me away” Grohl sings in the softest voice I think he’s ever sung in. It reminds us that everyone, even celebrities who are often held on an insanely high pedestal, can feel emotions and miss their loved ones. Home is a place where you’re surrounded by people you love whether those are friends or family or even a mixture of both; it’s somewhere you “have no fear of [your] heart”, a place to shelter you “from cold and the pain”. It’s simple lyrically but brings up such complex feelings and emotions, and proves that the smallest and simplest things can hold so much meaning and power.

“Miami 2017 (I’ve Seen The Lights Go Out on Broadway)” (Turnstiles), Billy Joel

This song ends the only Billy Joel record I have in my vinyl collection so far. As a New Yorker, it hits close to home when really listening to what the song is saying. “Miami 2017” tells a story of a future (the song was written in the mid 1970s, so to 1976 Billy Joel, 2017 was the future) where New York has ceased to exist, and those who survived the city falling to shambles moved to Florida to tell the tales of the city that once was. Written in a time of political turmoil and a near economic downfall, “Miami 2017” touches on different groups of people and areas within the city; the rich buying Cadillacs to drive away from the collapsing city and only looking to save themselves, unions on strike, Harlem burning, and even 42nd St. not being the lovely Times Square we’ve come to know and love. It paints a rather dark picture but masks it with an upbeat jazzy style of backing music. New York has taken some pretty rough hits in the last 20 years or so; from 9/11 (I was an infant when it happened so I don’t remember it), to Hurricane Sandy destroying too many communities and lives to count, and of course COVID causing the city that never sleeps to shut off its lights for months on end, but we always come back strong. Too many of us have seen the lights go out on Broadway, watched the mighty skyline fall, but we brave through the hard times and keep the spirit of New York alive and well. 

“The Tide” (Flicker), Niall Horan

This is my favorite song off of Flicker, and my second favorite Niall song ever. It closes the deluxe version of Flicker, and it carries so much emotion and passion in every single note. There’s some sort of irony in Niall starting the track with the line “Oh no, get ready” as the album comes to a close, I think that was something that drew me to this song initially. The entirety of “The Tide” is about Niall struggling in his relationships, he wants to maintain them but fears he’ll lose his connections with people due to his own fears and anxieties (“Everytime we get this close/ It’s always pulling us apart”, “When I go, all I ever seem to fear/ Is that you’re gonna find someone/ And slowly watch me disappear”). The instrumentals showcase the fear spilling out of Niall; the verses are more steady and not as instrumentally loud, whereas the chorus (especially that final chorus) builds upon the verses and adds more layers of instruments to back Niall’s powerful, slightly gravelly vocals. It’s one of the most overlooked tracks in Niall’s discography, yet it’s one of the most complex and beautifully written songs. Ending the (deluxe) album with this track was such a statement. 

“Rainbow” (Golden Hour), Kacey Musgraves

Throughout the Grammy winning Golden Hour album, Kacey talks about her conflicting feelings with being happy and fearing that the happiness will never last. However, this track sees Kacey starting to slowly accept the happiness and that good things can happen and stay good. The first verse talks about how it can be hard to realize things are good when all you’re used to is struggling to “stay[in’] above the risin’ water line”. However, Kacey reminds us that things will be okay; the sky has opened up, the wind and rain have stopped. Kacey tells her listeners to tie up their boats, take off their coats, close their umbrellas up, and look around at all the beauty around them. It’s such a positive note to end the album on. “It’ll all be alright”, Kacey sings in a velvety voice, and similar to “Fine Line”, it feels like a breath of fresh air, and for a few moments you actually believe that everything will truly turn out alright. 

“I Know The End” (Punisher), Phoebe Bridgers

If you’ve read my blog in recent months you know how obsessed with Phoebe Bridgers I am. “I Know The End” closes such a beautiful album from such a beautiful storyteller. This track references other songs on the album (“And when I call, you come home/ A bird in your teeth” calls back to lyrics in “Moon Song”, and the whole “the end is near” thing is a callback to the line in “Chinese Satellite” about screaming at Evangelicals), and it feels like one big apocalyptic ending. The track builds up into this chaotic sounding chorus of Phoebe and friends saying “The end is near” as a swarm of instruments and crashes take over, and it expertly wraps up the entire record. Talking about romanticizing aspects of life and touching on (somewhat) current American events, “I Know The End” feels like an Armageddon in the best way possible. It’s genius quite frankly, you’ll feel a lot of emotion bubbling up inside of you when you listen and I think that’s exactly the reaction Phoebe wanted from listeners. 

“Afterglow” (Last Young Renegade), All Time Low

A number of people were not huge fans of this All Time Low album, but for my personal ranking it’s in my top 3 albums by them ever. I love the fact that it tells a story from top to bottom; a young renegade growing up and learning how to navigate through the highs and lows of life. The really awesome and the really crappy are all laid out in this ten track album, and “Afterglow” is the triumphant, more celebratory track this album needed to be concluded with. This song was the last one to be written for Last Young Renegade, and it’s so fitting that such a positive track closes off such a personal and honest record from the band. Our young renegade and his love are together, “King and queen of the streets again”; love is fueling them, and they’re finally at a happier place in life. Take it easy, hold onto the happy feeling you have now, and get caught up in the beauty of this closing track of one of the best All Time Low albums to date. 

“Riders On The Storm” (L.A. Woman), The Doors

This track not only closes out the entire L.A. Woman album, it was also the final song Jim Morrison ever recorded before his tragic death in July 1971. Starting off as a jam session of a cowboy song by Stan Jones, Morrison decided to change the name from “Ghost Riders In The Sky” to “Riders On The Storm” and create a new Doors song. A numer of fans of the band seem to think this album fairs as a final musical suicide note for Jim Morrison, who opened up about a lot of his struggles throughout the lyrics of other songs on this album; from loneliness and depression to drug dependence and wanting to find a way out of L.A., “Riders On The Storm” serves almost as a symbol of Morrison’s escape to freedom from his negative thoughts and the L.A. scene. The final touch Jim added to this song was a vocal layer where he’s whispering the lyrics which you can hear if you listen extremely closely, and that was the last musical thing he ever did. It makes listening to this entire album, and this track specifically a lot more intense. 

That wraps up our list of ten incredible album closers! As always let me know your thoughts on my list, and if you have a favorite not mentioned on this list feel free to drop it in the comments!