What makes a perfect album closing song? It’s a tough art to master in any genre, especially in the streaming and playlist age, where the effect gets lost without a proper front-to-back listen. The final statement on a record needs to either up the intensity of what’s come before or change direction, offering something soft and sentimental that still fits within the context of the album. Think about Oasis’ “Champagne Supernova,” Jimmy Eat World’s “Goodbye Sky Harbor,” and Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt.” Each track possesses a drastically different mood, from epic to sprawling to haunting, but they were all nominated as contenders for this list.
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With the topic on our minds, we wanted to find out what our readers consider the best album closing songs. Find the top fan picks ranked below.
5. AFI – “This Time Imperfect”
AFI’s Sing the Sorrow has aged like a fine wine, growing into one of the band’s most beloved albums. They even played it in full for its 20th anniversary at Inglewood’s Kia Forum in 2023 for the “first and last time ever” to a packed-out crowd. In an album filled with standouts, though, the hidden track “This Time Imperfect” has long been a fan favorite. Compared to the rest of Sing the Sorrow’s high energy, “This Time Imperfect” slows everything down, bringing dark introspection to the fore. While the song hasn’t been a staple of their recent tour, they did pull it out for their stop in San Diego a couple of days ago.
4. Green Day – “Whatsername”
Green Day’s American Idiot was hugely ambitious, offering up epics that reflected modern dysphoria. “The country’s divided, split right down the middle, and there’s a lot of confusion… Everybody just feels like they don’t know where their future is heading right now,” Billie Joe Armstrong told us in 2004, in the wake of its release. But for all its high-stakes emotion, it’s fitting to end their punk-rock opera on a bittersweet note. “Whatsername” — acting as American Idiot’s epilogue that takes place several years later — sees the protagonist Jesus of Suburbia thinking about the woman who tore his heart out, though he can’t remember her name. It’s easily one of their best album closing songs, in the eyes of our readers.
3. Anberlin – “Fin”
Anberlin put high expectations on themselves for 2007’s Cities, exploring a wider range of tempos and moods that ultimately landed the group a major-label deal for their next album. Their elevated maturity and attention to detail were most apparent for the LP’s grand finale — the near-nine-minute track “(*Fin),” rich in imagery and complete with a children’s choir. That album closing song turned out so well that frontman Stephen Christian copied the process — singing whatever came to him in the moment — for “Depraved” off 2010’s Dark Is the Way, Light Is a Place.
2. The Wonder Years – “I Just Want To Sell Out My Funeral”
You probably remember the Wonder Years’ 2013 album, The Greatest Generation, blowing up on Tumblr. For years, its lyrics were set against neat floral arrangements or watercolor art that felt impossible to escape. However, its huge pop-punk closer, “I Just Want To Sell Out My Funeral,” remains its defining moment. It sees the band firing on all cylinders, interpolating parts from the previous songs, whether it was verses from “There, There” or the Marlon Brando outro from “A Raindance in Traffic.” It didn’t feel tacked on, either. Instead, “I Just Want To Sell Out My Funeral” represents the desire to leave behind a meaningful legacy, ending on the highest note possible.
1. My Chemical Romance – “Famous Last Words”
In many ways, My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade was cursed. Beyond writing and recording in the notoriously haunted Paramour mansion, the concept album was permeated by a series of setbacks, including Mikey Way temporarily leaving and injuries during their “Famous Last Words” video. Gerard Way hurt his ankle, and Bob Bryar got seriously burned during the final shot, where the fictional band the Black Parade is incinerated. Out of those obstacles, though, remains an intensely cathartic track about perseverance and strength. Its chorus remains forever poignant, burying the frustration and dread through stadium-sized ambitions.