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* "White Hammer" by [[Van Der Graaf Generator]] is a somewhat cheery-sounding song about [[The Power of Love]], until the last two minutes where it suddenly turns into a nightmarish fight between a saxophone and a church organ. The fact that the song is really about the Spanish Inquisition may explain this.
** Don't forget "Man-Erg"! Probably ''the'' example of a [[Vd GG]] song that exemplifies this trope more than any other - starts with a calm, soothing simple piano & organ progression, that suddenly descends into honking cacophonous Saxophone blasts, with Hammil shrieking "HOW CAN I BE FREE? HOW CAN I GET HELP? AM I REALLY ME, OR AM I SOMEONE ELSE??". It soon abruptly changes back to the simple piano, not before long doing pretty much the same thing again. "Lemmings" from the same album (''Pawn Hearts'') is similar, to a lesser degree. And "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers"?, well...
** From the same album, the track "After The Flood", after veering from pastoral reflection to skronky jazz-rock, climaxes with Peter Hammill screaming 'Total Annihilatiiiiiiioooooooooon!' through a [[Doctor Who (TV)|Dalek]] voice filter. Beyond nightmarish.
* The last minute and a half of [[Pink Floyd]]'s "Bike" is made up entirely of discordant mechanical sounds and cartoonish laughter.
** "Jugband Blues" finishes with a cacophony of a brass band each playing random notes and background distortions, but then at the very end, it fades out into Syd Barrett softly singing the last few lines in a ghostly voice. Even creepier considering that this essentially marked the tragic end of his unraveling involvement with Pink Floyd. The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTtXVrANEhU live version] adds visuals that take it straight into horror territory.
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** The transition from "Breaking the Silence" to "I Don't Believe In Love" features whispered, "We know you did it? Why'd you do it?" overlapping with Nickie screaming, "No! No! [[Big No|NOOOOOOOOO!]]"
* [[X Japan]]'s "Jade". It's a loud song to begin with, but the chorus is quite uplifting and melodious, and at the end it sounds like it's going to fade out gently. And then the guitars come crashing back in and Toshi goes for a giant ''screeching'' high note. Yikes.
* A variant appears in [[Alice in Chains (Music)|Alice in Chains]]' "Rain When I Die". The song fades out... [[Fake -Out Fade -Out|then it starts to progressively get 2-3 times louder]] than the rest of the song and cuts off.
* The song "Disgustipated", on Tool's ''Undertow'' has an extended version of this. After about 10 minutes of nothing but chirping crickets, a recorded message that may or may not be about a serial killer plays, cutting off just before the end. Said message was alleged to have been [[Throw It In|left on the band's answering machine]] by someone called 'Bill the Landlord'. Let the speculation commence.
** "Faaip de Oiad" ('Voice of God', in Enochian) is the 'last note' of [[Tool]]'s ''Lateralus'' album, and consists of mad, inspired drumming overlaid by a sample of a caller to Art Bell's talk-radio show. He's panicked, and describes things, hints and rumors, he's discovered while working at an Air Force base near Groom Lake, Nevada (Area 51). If you do your homework, you might find out that it's (most likely) a hoax, but before you do, or if you doubt the hoax story, the fear in the man's voice is genuinely terrifying.
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* Vladislav Delay's album-length piece "Anima" starts with a conversation: "Danny, are you awake yet?" "No, are you"? before slipping into 60 minutes of ambiance and random, sometimes scary synthesizer noises, which finally ends with a splash and the words "I may never go to sleep again, I might stay awake forever". Try listening to it in the dark.
* [[Patrick Wolf]]'s "Wolf Song" is a folk song performed with traditional acoustic instruments. The last chord, however (together with a wolf-like howl), is digitally mutilated to be a glitchy stutter. Someone who doesn't know Mr. Wolf's other work might think there's a playback error.
* Kind of a reversal into First Note Nightmare: [[Rammstein (Music)|Rammstein]]'s "Reise, Reise" is a creepy song in and of itself, moreso if you [[Bilingual Bonus|speak German]], but the first thirty seconds or so consist of a clip from the blackbox of [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_123:Japan Airlines Flight 123|Japan Airlines 123]] immediately before it crashed.
** Then there's the song right after "Reise, Reise", called "Mein Teil", which starts loudly and suddenly after "Reise, Reise" ends, being a last-note AND first-note nightmare at the same time.
* [[Nine Inch Nails]]' "Hurt" is a quiet, melancholy song that morphs into a strangely uplifting ballad...then looks like it's going to taper off quietly. Instead, the last line is accompanied by a crashing, detuned guitar. It fades out for over a minute, followed by an ominous wind/static sound (on the album version).
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== Classical ==
* The last three bars of Mozart's "A Musical Joke" are in a polytonal jumble of five different keys.
* Haydn's [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Surprise_symphony:Surprise symphony|Surprise Symphony]] has a nice peaceful melody, but is then rudely interrupted by loud, accented notes. Haydn did it to wake up slumbering members of the audience. He was known as a prankster, and this is one of the many jokes in his pieces.
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJDWh9F3Vig Here it is on Youtube, for those of you who enjoy your spines 1 inch out of proper alignment in the vertical direction.]
* Haydn's [http[wikipedia://enSymphony No.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._45_%28Haydn%29 45 chr(28)Haydnchr(29)|Farewell Symphony]], while not a nightmare ending, is pretty disconcerting. The last movement ends with the musicians, one or a few at a time, quietly leaving the stage, with the final part played by just two violins. This was Haydn's hint to his patrons, the Esterhazy family, that his orchestra's stay at their summer palace had gone on for too long and that they would really like to get back to their families.
* Tom Turpin's "A Ragtime Nightmare" is actually a very cheerful upbeat ragtime work despite the name, best known for its use in the Good N' Plenty commercials of the 60s. But the last chord sounds like a bunch of random keys hit at once, but you can tell it wasn't because it's pure dissonance. A sharp contrast to the pleasant tune known for its use in candy commercials.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV6BeeoX474 "Black Angels"] by George Crumb, while the whole piece is surreal, is something of an inversion. The first section, Night of the Electric Insects, features multiple screeching violins playing loudly then softly then loudly again. It's [[Nightmare Fuel]] that will keep you up at night. [[Schmuck Bait|Not to be listened to while reading]] [[Nothing Is Scarier|the Nothing Is Scarier section]].
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** The track "Honeymoon with Anxiety" (Fuan to no Mitsugetsu) from the ''End of Evangelion'' soundtrack is a cool bit of music that ends with an unsettling... violin... thing.
** And then from Rebuild 2.0, there's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a_Rv3zzdKw Kyou no Hi wa Sayounara] (Farewell for Today). You know, that wonderfully sweet little song that was playing {{spoiler|[[Soundtrack Dissonance|when EVA 01 ripped 03 apart with Asuka inside while Shinji begged his father to turn off the Dummy System.]]}} It's wonderful and sweet, but on the soundtrack, we get a weird little... thing at the end, which consists of a somewhat distorted repeat of part of the song... which then gets some absolutely chilling violin chords and echo effects.
* ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni]]'' has lots of character songs that start out happy, then turn... disturbing. The best example of Last Note Nightmare is Keiichi's song, ''Cool ni Nare! ~Keep On Our Love~'', which is a [[Hot -Blooded]] appeal to [[Screw Destiny]], the final line being {{spoiler|Keiichi abruptly saying "Oops, I screwed up" (and, since this is ''Higurashi'', presumably dying).}}
** Actually, the line before that is "Yes, Hinamizawa", which is a reference to ''another'' character song that featured Keiichi (and Mr. Delicious). So, it was probably more of an "Ah crap, wrong lyrics" thing.
*** ... and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hZyoSjTPfw that song] has it's own [[Last-Note Nightmare]]. It's a silly nonsensical rap mainly consisting of phrases from the anime... {{spoiler|until Keiichi starts scratching out his throat.}} [[Dead Baby Comedy|And it's played for laughs.]]
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== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' had this in "The Pandorica Opens", when {{spoiler|The Doctor is sealed in the pandorica, a beautiful score begins playing and swooping, then the camera zooms out and shows the universe exploding.. And the music suddenly stops... Mid-Note... }}
** Just as {{spoiler|the Master and the Time Lords disappear back into the Time War}} in ''The End of Time'', and the Tenth Doctor thinks he's somehow managed to avoid his own prophesied demise, we hear four knocks, and the chords played by the strings appropriately fall apart and gliss down with tons of dissonance, mirroring the Doctor's own sinking realization.
* Happens in ''[[Lost]]'' a few times, most notably at the end of the episode where Aaron is born.
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* When you get a [[Time Paradox]] in ''[[Metal Gear Solid 3]]'', the music goes on for a while until the whole screen reverses color and plays a loud noise when the letters become "TIME PARADOX".
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ofFFio-Y_g You mean this one.] Oddly enough, while most of the [[Game Over]] themes (in general) are horror, this one [[Awesome Music (Sugar Wiki)|starts off pretty well]], regardless of how melancholy it is.
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask]]'': The title demo sequence. It originally shows various scenes of Clock Town and its inhabitants, with a peaceful-sounding rendition of the Clock Town theme playing in the background. But at the last 30 seconds, the scene shifts toward the Skull Kid and the falling moon in the night sky, and at this point the Clock Town theme starts to blend into the ominous theme of the Skull Kid, before transforming into it completely. A definite change from the simplistic yet cheery demo of ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Video Game)|Ocarina of Time]]'' (the previous N64 Zelda title), reflecting this game's comparatively darker atmosphere.
** Even worse is this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6NPqt2866E&feature=related remix] of the Final Hours theme, which takes an already Nightmarish piece and, somehow, turns into [[Awesome Music (Sugar Wiki)|Awesome Music]]. Despite that, it does revert back to its hellish origins during its last few moments, wherein the music ([[Hell Is That Noise|and the Clock Tower bell in the background]]) suddenly shifts into grainy, distorted feedback, then gradually grind to a halt, simulating the moons imminent impact with Termina.
* ''[[Earthbound (Video Game)|Earthbound]]'''s [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4z82byt5mA "Pokey Means Business"]/ Sounds like a fairly epic 8-bit final boss music, and then...
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* The track [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrV8cRMRaMo "Showdown at Hollow Bastion"] from the ''[[Kingdom Hearts II (Video Game)|Kingdom Hearts II]]'' OST. The abrupt transitions are heart-quickening (no pun intended) and can be slightly nightmarish: it begins with a mild little score, suddenly picks up tempo and sounds like montage music, and THEN suddenly becomes all-out battle music complete with a choir that has a similar effect to [[Ominous Latin Chanting]]. And the entire piece is under a minute long.
** Then again, stop for a moment and consider the situation in which the song is used. ''Everything'' in the song, from start to finish, is [[Awesome Music (Sugar Wiki)|Awesome Music]] [[Kingdom Hearts (Franchise)/Awesome Music|(duh)]] and builds up - and perfectly synches to - the war sequence (go to the article for [[The War Sequence]], the pic shows the exact instant in which said "Last Note Nightmare" occurs), making it [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAGFWmfXK4A full-fledged] (as the caption for the image in [[The War Sequence]] says, "BRING IT!") [[Awesome Music (Sugar Wiki)|Awesome Music]].
* ''[[Pac-Man World]] 2'' features a boss fight called "Pinky's Revenge." The BGM starts out as a very upbeat piece meant to evoke happy feelings about the [[Slippy -Slidey Ice World|snowy surroundings]] ... but then a dissonant chord strikes, followed by a couple more ... then it gets back into the happy groove again. But at 0:53, it totally breaks down, with blaring [[Psycho Strings]] and sudden hard percussion as the whole thing turns absolutely horrifying. It gets a little [[Narm]]-y when it starts using [[Stock Sound Effect]] muted-trumpet hits later on, but overall it's quite scary.
* ''[[Doom (Video Game)|Doom]]'' has an excellent example. At the end of the game, you're teleported back to Earth after fighting through the legions of Satan and the fires of Hell itself, treated to a scenery shot of a frolicking meadow before noticing that the demons got here first. The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wFiRLMf0is music] reflects this.
* ''[[Final Fantasy VI (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VI]]'' has the soundtrack version of Ghost Train theme. While the entire song is basically a funeral march, the song ends with a loud, piercing train whistle.
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[[Category:Music Tropes]]
[[Category:Last Note Nightmare]]
[[Category:Trope]]
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