Why Do Songs Fade Out At The End?

NPR's Tom Cole at The Record blog  writes he's received a lot of interesting questions regarding aspects of the music industry you'd like to know more about. We're tackling them one at a time — so if you keep the questions coming, we'll keep doing our best to answer them.

This week's question comes from Richard Wells of Bala Cynwyd, Penn.

"Who created the idea of songs fading out and why?  It seems a rather odd concept—that a song would not end definitively, but rather fade away into silence.  That's not how songs are played live; why is it accepted for studio recordings?"

Short answer: we don't know who or why. But we got some pretty good ideas from a bunch of very knowledgeable folks.

There has been some speculation that song fades date back to the earliest days of recording. But back then it would have been a challenge because recording was mechanical — a live performance was etched directly onto a cylinder or disc by a needle that was essentially vibrated by the sound waves created by a band. To achieve a fade as we know it today, the musicians would have to play softer and softer and softer and softer.

Read more here.