The TOTW thread on CAS title track led to this exchange on the increasing tendency of Genesis songs to fade out rather than have 'proper' endings. I thought I'd avoid derailing that thread and continue the topic here.
Schrottrocker is right, up to and including Duke less than half their songs faded out. Early on, when they did fade it was sometimes as an 'outro', eg Harold, Moonlit Knight, Firth, Counting Out Time, Mouse's, or as a bookend eg IKWIL - unusual in fading both in and out on the same drone. On the Lamb there are a few cross-fades as well as the direct segues that all serve the ongoing story aspect.
It's a shame that such a creative band came to rely almost wholly on a formulaic song ending style. They seemed to lose that sense of using fadeouts sparingly in a way that served the song constructively, as in some of the above examples. It coincides with setting up The Farm and making songs via studio jams. Could that be a reason for it, beyond mere correlation?
The Beatles rarely used fadeouts, and certainly on their early albums - while still a touring band - they wrote partly with stage performance in mind, wanting to ensure songs had proper endings that could be played live. Presumably Genesis, who as we all know could be ruthlessly unsentimental about their material when it came to live shows, created the songs in the studio and therefore thought of them purely as studio entities to be adapted as needed if played live. It would explain the often peremptory "this'll do" BRRRRM-TSSSHHH approach to song endings on stage - the worst of which for me being the appalling clod-hopping hamfisted ending to Duchess on the final tour.
Here's Paperlate in its complete original studio version (ie no fade-out), which I like a lot. Do we know if there are any other similar 'complete'/non-fade-out versions of their songs out there?
And here's the far superior original It's Yourself with its MMM opening-like ending. I think someone on here said the reason it fades on Archive 2 is in the intervening years that bit of master tape had corrupted. I hope that's the reason as it's too irritating to think they consciously took the stupid decision to fade it.