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* Bedouin Sundclash's 2010 album has a few cases of this ("Fool's Tattoo" to "May You Be the Road", "Elongo" to "No One Moves, No One Gets Hurt"). However, even despite the melancholic yet slightly happy mood of the album, the ultimate whiplash happens in the last track, "Follow The Sun", which has a dreary, surreal nightmare feel and is about the survivors of a nuclear fallout. However, even that is ambiguous as the lyrics even imply they may already be dead and their souls are roaming the earth.
* ''Sorry'' by [[Nerf Herder]] relies heavily on this trope, especially in the second verse.
{{quote| Sorry I saw you and I heard birds sing,<br />
Sorry I touched you and I heard bells ring,<br />
Sorry I jacked off outside of your window<br />
While you were sleeping, I thought you'd never know }}
* The track listing of volume 2 of ''[[The Wedding Singer]]'' soundtrack is interesting. "Just Can't Get Enough" by [[Depeche Mode]] is followed by "Love Stinks" by [[The J. Geils Band]]... which is '''then''' followed by "You Make My Dreams" by Hall & Oates. Sheesh!
* ''Straight to Hell'' by Hank Williams III. The first disc: "Outlaw country! Hell yeah!" The second disc (barring the first very first track): "Disturbing aural collage! What the hell!?"
* [[Nightwish (Music)|Nightwish]]'s "The Poet and the Pendulum" takes the cake for this trope, opening with a mystical and wondrous intro before switching to a symphonic power metal tale of a maddened and frantic poet, before switching to a placid melody that conveys a sense of acceptance, to a short track with pendulum blade-related sound effects and a boy reading ominous lines to build tension, to a rage and spite-filled rant expressing glee at the poet's demise, back to the second part, back to the mysterious child and the sounds effects, and finally to a comforting end as the poet is laid to rest. On top of all that, there are some hints that the song's portions may in fact be backwards.
* The album ''Coming Up to Breathe'' by [[Mercy Me]] has "I Would Die for You" as its last track, followed by the hidden track "Have Fun". And the contrast is obvious even without the song names.
* [[The Beatles]]' [[The White Album]]: The end of LP/CD 1 - "Julia" a tearful ballad written by Lennon for his deceased mother. Beginning of LP/CD 2 - "Birthday", an uproarious cheery rocking tune that's about, [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|well...yeah.]]
** And at the end of the album, the chaotic aural collage "Revolution 9" is followed by the sweet, lushly orchestrated ballad "Good Night". Both were Lennon compositions.
** Also from the same album: the disturbing, intense "Happiness is a Warm Gun" followed by the bouncy, cheerful "Martha My Dear". A quite telling example of the contrast between John and Paul's styles.
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* On [[The Beach Boys]] album ''Surf's Up'', it happens twice in a row. "Disney Girls," one of the most peaceful songs on the album, is followed by "Student Demonstration Time," which includes lyrics about the Kent State shootings, among other things, and is one of the heaviest songs the band did. This is then followed by "Feel Flows," which brings the mood back to tranquil.
* "The Commander Thinks Aloud" by [[The Long Winters]] fits this trope beautifully. What starts a gentle, light, and hopeful song practically smashes you over the head with a five-word line that completely skews the song's feel to a sense of shock and loss in three seconds without a single change of key.
* "Sweet Child O' Mine" by [[Guns N' Roses (Music)|Guns N' Roses]] is all sweet and euphoric in the first part (which developed out of an "circus melody" the band made while fooling around), until the ending kicks in and it gets all angsty. No, not [[Wangst]], but genuine and convincing angst.
** In the same album, "Rocket Queen" goes from sexual and aggressive to a healtfelt final stanza. (also, the two most sensitive songs, "Think About You" and "Sweet Child O' Mine", are sandwiched between two which couldn't be less romantic, "My Michelle" and "You're Crazy")
** The music video for "''November Rain''".
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* [[Tom Lehrer]] is great at these.
** ''We Will All Go Together When We Go" starts off as a lament over inevitable mortality and the mourning that ensues, and then quickly changes to a "positive dynamic uplifting song in the tradition of the great old revival hymns" - about how the nuclear Armageddon will kill us all at the same time.
** ''Poisoning Pigeons in the Park'' is a carefree, whimsical song despite the [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|subject matter]] - "All the world seems in tune / On a spring afternoon, / When we're poisoning pigeons in the park."
** ''In Old Mexico'' has a few examples:
*** "The mariachis would serenade, / And they would not shut up till they were paid."
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* [[Meat Loaf]]'s 2010 album ''Hang Cool Teddy Bear'' has a significant example in the second half. The slow, moving love ballad "Did You Ever Love Somebody" is immediately followed by a song about how the singer has a ridiculously large erection ("California Isn't Big Enough (Hey There Girl)"). The whiplash is increased when you remember that this is being sung by a now-62-year-old rocker, making the latter song sound like an [[Fetish Retardant|unnecessarily explicit Cialis commercial]].
* ''Single File'', a compilation album by electronic dance group [[The Beloved]], has such a moment. The song ''Time After Time'' is a heartbreaking love song about someone in a tumultuous, failing relationship. The following track contains a prominent sound sample of one of the band members farting.
* Several songs by [[Between the Buried Andand Me]] tend to do this in really odd ways. The songs "Fire For A Dry Mouth" and [[Word Salad Title|"Naked By The Computer"]] (yes, that's the real title) begin and end in opposing ways. The former begins with some of the hardest, grindingest metal they produce, but ends with a weird, rather upbeat instrumental section that gives the feeling of passing into the night. The latter begins with a slow, strumming line of guitar chords and then enters into what the former starts with for the rest of the song.
* [[Coheed and Cambria]] does this with "Always and Never". The lyrics start like this:
{{quote| Stay with me and fall asleep<br />
Pray to God for no bad dreams... }}
** And then it ends with...
{{quote| I'm still waiting here... to kill all of you.}}
* Any [[John Cale]] song which involves him screaming, taken to the logical extreme in live performances (before he sobered up). [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ6rSrYSAbg Case in point].
* [[Iron Maiden (Music)|Iron Maiden]] open their ''Powerslave'' album with "Aces High", an anthemic tune about WWII fighter pilots. Right after that song is "2 Minutes To Midnight", with a decidedly anti-war message.
** [[Iron Maiden (Music)|Iron Maiden]] in general are ''truly'' dark, especially when compared to their pop-oriented counterparts [[Judas Priest (Music)|Judas Priest]] (who are usually more a case of [[Dark Is Not Evil]]). Many of their songs are inspired by actual British or European history, both of which are rife with centuries of violence and death. "Aces High" ''sounds'' pretty gung-ho until you reflect on what will happen to Britain if the pilots fail, and that many of them are going to be shot down by the Luftwaffe in any case. "The Duellists" has as its protagonist a swordsman who is frightfully outmatched but accepts a challenge to a duel anyway to avoid being branded a coward, and dies in the attempt. "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," based on the [[The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Literature)|Coleridge poem of the same title]], is true to the original's general [[Downer Ending]]. "Paschendale," their World War I tribute, is a genuinely terrifying song (sounding more like [[Black Sabbath (Music)|Black Sabbath]] than Iron Maiden, actually) with soldiers dying in droves in a muddy no-man's-land. "The Clansman," like "Aces High," would sound pretty hopeful if not for the line "And I swear that I'll never be taken alive!" When they do a (relatively) lighthearted number like "Holy Smoke," it sounds quite out of place.
** And for another album succession example, on ''Piece Of Mind'' the upbeat "Sun And Steel" followed by the creepy "To Tame A Land".
** Sometimes the whiplash happens in the same song: "These Colours Don't Run" alternates between "[[War Is Hell]], I'm afraid to go to it" ("There is no one that will save you, going down in flames,No surrender certain death you look it in the eye") and the chorus with its patriotic message ("Far away from the land of our birth, We fly a flag in some foreign earth, We sailed away like our fathers before, [[Title Drop|These colours don't run]] [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|from cold bloody war]]")
* The [[Pokémon]] anime's "2.B.A. Master" CD, a compilation of songs from the first season of the animé, has this for at least '''half''' of the CD. Track number seven is a [[Tear Jerker]] known as "The Time Has Come [Pikachu's Goodbye]." <ref>[[Averted Trope|Averted]] in that Pikachu [[Put Onon a Bus|never actually left permanently]]. </ref> The next song is an upbeat "Pokémon Dance Mix," and that is exactly what it is called. The ''next'' song is a song based off of the Team Rocket trio's motto. The next song is an anthem of [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|eternal friendship]]. "Misty's Song," a love ballad [[Unrequited Love|from the eponymous character to Ash]]<ref>though not sung by her voice actor</ref>, is immediately followed by [[Memetic Mutation|the Pokérap]]. Which is then followed by "You Can Do It If You Really Try," a decidedly more downbeat but nonetheless [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|uplifting]] song.
* The song "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uILWuWiVapg Bangles]" by Niraj Chag is heartbreakingly beautiful and bittersweet (and the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Htb8mpdN_lk live version] might even take it up a notch), made moreso by the music video, which tells the story of an old woman reminiscing about the childhood she spent playing with her grandfather, and how it ended when she was married at a young age. I ''wept''. Now, here's the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOuiNnIUhws original version].
* "Rebel Rebel," that poppy, cheery bi anthem from [[David Bowie]]? On the album ''Diamond Dogs'', it's sandwiched right between a grim three-part look at the mind of a pederast and his lover and a string of five songs inspired by ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]''.
** His later album ''Lodger'' is another dour one, only perked up tonally by the cheerfully campy "Boys Keep Swinging". ''That'' song comes between "Look Back in Anger", about an encounter with a tired angel of death, and "Repetition", about a [[Domestic Abuser]].
* [[Gustav Holst]]'s ''The Planets'' flips from the ominous and bombastic "Mars, the Bringer of War" to the serene "Venus, the Bringer of Peace". "Jupiter, the [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|Bringer of Jollity]]" comes right before the eerie "Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age."
* [[King Crimson]] loves this. A good example within albums is the transition from the loud, angry and downbeat "21st Century Schizoid Man" to immediately, and without any form of transition, switching to "I Talk to the Wind" a soothing, flute heavy song. And the transition works would you believe it.
* "Another Way To Die" by [[Disturbed (Music)|Disturbed]] starts out with a slow musical intro, then David Draiman's sombre voice lamenting [[Green Aesop|the state of the environment]]. After a moment the trademark rush of guitars and double-bass drumming begins along with Draiman's staccato roar.
** The rest of the album is made up of themes of hardship, despair and disgust with the world. [[Hidden Track|Then after a minute of silence]], the band plays a cover of [[U 2U2]]'s "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", giving the album a sense of closure through a journey.
* Any time an MP3 player with a wide variety of songs is on shuffle, this is undoubtedly going to happen quite often!
* [[My Chemical Romance]]'s album ''Danger Days'' have "DESTROYA," a heavy rock song about rebelling in everything and everyone, sandwiched between "Summertime," one of the softest, almost [[The Cure]]-like song of them, and "The Kids From Yesterday," another soft rock song.
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* This happens on [[The White Stripes]]' ''Elephant'' album, although it's not as obvious as other examples. "I Want to Be the Boy to Warm Your Mother's Heart" is a sweet piano ballad about being in love. It's followed by the much, ''much'' darker "You've Got Her In Your Pocket," another ballad, about obsession and jealousy. The fact that the two songs sound rather similar hides the whiplash, but when you notice it, it hits ''hard.''
* This happens a lot on [[Pavement]] albums. To take one example, on ''Slanted and Enchanted'', the touching, bittersweet "Here" is followed by "Two States," a fast, punky song about how Southern California sucks. On ''Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain'', the slow, enigmatic "Newark Wilder" is followed by "Unfair"...another song about how Southern California sucks!
* [["Weird Al" Yankovic]] does this from time to time.
** A perfect example is on the album "Straight Outta Lynwood," after his [[Rage Against the Machine]] parody "I'll Sue Ya." After an angry song like that one, there's an abrupt guitar chord, which is directly followed by a one-second pause going into "Polkarama," which has the [[Dance Craze]] "Chicken Dance" as an intro. Of course, THAT goes into a polka cover of "Let's Get It Started" by [[The Black Eyed Peas]].
** Within the song "That's Your Horoscope for Today", the prediction for Sagittarius goes from the lighthearted, silly predictions for others to '''"Kill them"''' in a deep, evil sounding voice without any music playing, then jumps straight back to silly in the very next line.
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* [[Dido]]'s album ''Safe Trip Home'' follows ''Us 2 Little Gods'', perhaps the only genuinely uplifting song she's ever done, with ''The day before the day'', which is about her dad dying.
* [[Pantera]]'s ''Suicide Note pt 1 and 2'' pretty much jumps Pantera's emotional spectrum (depressing to Angry) between parts.
* [[Lady Gaga]] has a case of ''album'' whiplash. ''The Fame'' had a few darker songs ("Paparazzi" has some disturbing undertones, and "Poker Face" isn't quite as lyrically upbeat as you'd expect), but was mostly composed of light, dance-oriented songs like "Just Dance" and "Summerboy." Then came ''The Fame Monster'', a shorter album originally intended to be an EP. Sure, we have "Telephone", if you can disregard the video, but we've also got "[[Bad Romance]]", "Dance in the Dark" (which, while [[Word of God]] claims is about being yourself, seems to be more about an abusive relationship), "Alejandro", and "Speechless", which is notable if only for the fact that it uses little to no [[AutotuneAuto-Tune]], no synthesizers, and relies solely on piano, guitar/bass, and drums (and take a look at the lyrics-- a bit more bitter than you'd expect from Gaga).
* "Matches" by [[Sammy Kershaw]]. Boy meets girl, girl gives boy matchbook with her phone number on it, girl leaves boy, boy finds matchbook, boy goes to the bar where they met, boy laments. It's one of a million slow, sad country songs, except that it ends with this exchange:
{{quote| And everybody at The Broken Spoke<br />
Well they all thought my crazy story was a joke<br />
Now they're all out in the parking lot, starin' at the smoke }}
* ''MacArthur Park'' has the music inexplicably change from solemn and melodious to a goofy upbeat solo just before the last reprise of the chorus.
* MC Lars does this on his album ''This Gigantic Robot Kills.'' The majority of the songs are humorous satire. Then we get "Twenty-Three" halfway through the album about his friend's suicide.
* [[Blondie (band)|Blondie]]'s ''Parallel Lines'', with the upbeat "Hanging on the Telephone," "One Way or Another" and "Picture This" followed by the dark and moody "Fade Away and Radiate." It is done again on the second side with the pop-punk "Sunday Girl" followed by the disco-blues "Heart of Glass," and then the hyperactive "I'm Gonna Love You Too."
* Parodied in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI6CfKcMhjY "Jack Sparrow"] by [[The Lonely Island]]. It's supposed to be a hip-hop track suited towards a club, though lyrically, Michael Bolton kind of goes off on a tangent...
* [[Queen]]'s album ''A Night At The Opera'' starts with the dark song "Death on Two Legs (Dedicated to...)", them immediately shifts to the whimsical "Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon".
* [[Metallica (Music)|Metallica]]'s Black Album has each of the two [[Power Ballad|Power Ballads]] ("The Unforgiven" and "Nothing Else Matters") stuck between two really aggressive songs.
* On [[The Offspring]]'s [[Greatest Hits Album]], the [[Grief Song]] "Gone Away" is between two songs of their usual fast-paced snarky punk, "All I Want" and "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)". (in the original album, less so, as [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsKIxRB8tns the track before] it's somewhat darker than [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yxbXsQ5yCc the follow-up])
** And like the Black Album above, ''Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace'' has the heartfelt and [[Tear Jerker|downright depressing]] songs ("Kristy Are You Doing OK?" and "Fix You") between snarky/aggressive tracks.
* [[The Veronicas]] placing Heavily Broken between Speechless (An acoustic love song) and I Could Get Used To This (A happy with someone special song)
* [[Britney Spears]], the penultimate track of ''In the Zone'' is the upbeat girl power-ish "Brave New Girl", which segues into "Everytime", one of the most [[Tear Jerker]] songs Britney ever recorded...
* The entirety of ''[[Daft Punk (Music)|Human After All]]'' is just one, long whiplash. It starts off with the cool, slightly disturbing title track, then jumps right into terror and madness with "Prime Time of Your Life". Then it goes into the [[Crowning Music of Awesome|awesomeness that is "Robot Rock"]]. Then the unsettling hissing of "SSSSTEEEEEEEEAMMM! MACHIIIIIIIIINE!". After that, you have the calm, somewhat saddening "Make Love". Then right back into madness with "I AM THE BRAINWASHERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!" Then On/Off happens. Then back to [[Epic Rocking]] with "TELEVISION. RULES THE NATION." Once more into madness with the ever so disturbing "Technologic". Finally, the last song has a whiplash within a whiplash. "Emotion" starts off like a calm little song in the vein of the previously mentioned "Make Love", or even "Something About Us", but then it suddenly uses pieces from the end of Technologic. The really unsettling bits, too.
* [[Wire]]'s third album, ''154'', is positively loaded with this, sandwiching [[Ear Worm|exquisitely catchy synth-pop constructions]] like "The 15th" and "Map Ref. 41ºN 93ºW" between visceral, charging art-punkers ("Two People In A Room", "Once Is Enough") and [[Hell Is That Noise|bizarre, nightmarish sound experiments]] ("The Other Window", "Indirect Enquiries"), or following [[Epic Rocking|all seven slow]], [[Darker and Edgier|brutal minutes]] of "A Touching Display" with the [[Pop Punk|quick]], [[Deadpan Snarker|snappy two]] of "On Returning".
* [[Warren Zevon]]'s ''Mr. Bad Example'' starts with "Finishing Touches," a gritty, brutal breakup song...then leads into "Suzie Lightning," a tender unrequited love ballad.
* For the most part John 5's solo albums are about what you'd expect from a guitarist who's worked with [[Rob Zombie]] and [[Marilyn Manson]] - however, he'll almost always throw in at least one country or bluegrass influenced instrumental. ''Vertigo'' even sandwiches a rendition of "Sweet Georgia Brown" between two shredding-based instrumental metal workouts.
* ''Waltz of the Snowflakes'' from [[Tchaikovsky]]'s score from ''[[The Nutcracker (Theatretheatre)|The Nutcracker]]'' ballet. It has pretty, soothing vocals... then it switches and sounds like there should be a war going on or something.
* [[Cowboy Troy]]'s ''Loco Motive'' album follows up the sad, beautiful "If You Don't Wanna Love Me" with a spoken-word intro to the next song, by [[Larry the Cable Guy]]. In it, he does his trademark "git-r-done" and makes a Barbra Streisand joke. Even worse, the sequencing puts Larry's spoken word in the same track as "If You Don't Wanna Love Me".
* "Susan's House" by [[Eels]] switches from one of the weirdest, darkest verses in the band's canon ([[Tear Jerker|and that's saying something]]) to the most beautiful, piano-led chorus they've ever come up with. This comes complete with a change in mood of the lyrics, from ''"Down by the Donut Prince a fifteen year old boy lies on the sidewalk with a bullet in his forehead"'' to ''"Going over to Susan's house, she's gonna make it right"''
* [[DirenDir En Grey]]'s album ''The Marrow of a Bone'' starts off with a slow alt-metal power ballad. It is then followed with several really aggressive songs, and the album doesn't slow down again for a while.
* The Zombies' "Butcher's Tale (Western Front 1914)" would probably stick out like a sore thumb no matter where it was placed on ''Odessey And Oracle'', as it's an eerie, pump-organ-based [[Protest Song]] about the horrors of war in the middle of a summery [[Baroque Pop]] album. As it stands, it's right after the optimistic love song "This Will Be Our Year", so lyrically we go from "the warmth of your love's like the warmth of the sun" to "I have seen a friend of mine hang on the wire like some rag toy \ then in the heat the flies come down and cover up the boy". And after that comes "Friends Of Mine", which is a little bittersweet lyrically, but is still the cheeriest-sounding song on the album.
* On [[Music/Dr Dre|Dr Dre]]'s ''1999'' album, "Fuck You" starts with a serious answering machine message left by a lady who misses her significant other terribly (and sounds like she's trying to not have an emotional breakdown)... and then suddenly when the music comes on we go from "I've just always wanted someone like you in my life, I love you so much that I'd do anything" to '''I JUST WANNA FUCK BAD BITCHES'''. Somehow, the fact that the song's very openly about [[Your Cheating Heart|cheating]] (the chorus partly goes "You've got a husband at home who/Loves you") doesn't help.
* The [[Foo Fighters (Music)|Foo Fighters]]' debut album starts with the slightly heavy "This Is A Call" and the full-on aggressive "I'll Stick Around"... and then comes [[Surprisingly Gentle Song|"Big Me"]] before some more heavy tracks. (in the [[Greatest Hits Album]] too, though follow-up "Breakout" builds the sonic assault instead of being straight-up like predecessor "Monkey Wrench")
* Roy Clark's "Thank God and Greyhound" starts out as wistful peon to the end of a bad relationship, and then shifts in mid-chord to a cheerful celebration that it's over. (The "Greyhound" in the title refers to the bus on which the singer's other half is leaving town.}
* [[Mariah Carey]] is guilty of this on a few occasions:
** She does it ''twice'' on "Glitter", which admittedly has the excuse of being a "soundtrack" - still, it's hard not to be a bit startled when "Reflections (Care Enough)", a drippy ballad that talks about parental abandonment and wishing she'd just been aborted instead, is followed immediately by a rowdy cover of "Last Night A DJ Saved My Life"; or when the dreamy "Twister", dedicated to a stylist friend of Mariah's who committed suicide, is tailed by the peppy, upbeat "Loverboy".
* [[Garbage]] always ends have a [[Downer Ending]] on their albums. But the deluxe edition of ''Not Your Kind of People'' follows the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8QrmVWH-sk usual depressing ballad] that closes the regular album with a [[Ear Worm|catchy]], [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97UaLFKy3h0&feature=related dance-y electronic rock song on their usual style].
* [[Radiohead]] has a ''lot'' of fun with this in its "OK Computer" album. For example:
** ''Paranoid Android'' '''''constantly''''' alternates between being slow and calm and being utterly frantic and insane, sometimes even (basically) doing both of said things at once.
** ''Exit Music (For a Film)'' features a certain line ("now, we are one, in everlasting peace") in which it similarly goes from being quiet and subtle to being remarkably loud and bombastic.
** The melancholic yet astonishingly bittersweet ''Let Down'' and ''Karma Police'' are immediately followed by the horrifically cold and depressing ''Fitter Happier''...
*** ...which is then followed by the highly (stereo)typical "political punk rock" song that ''Electioneering'' is.
** The aforementioned ''Electioneering'' is then followed by another extremely creepy and depressing song called ''Climbing Up The Walls''.
** Once the aforementioned ''Climbing Up The Walls'' is over, the album itself finally goes back to (basically) sounding like ''Airbag'', ''Subterranean Homesick Alien'' and most of ''Exit Music (For a Film)''.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20201019221238/https://horrible-music-and-songs.fandom.com/wiki/Submarine_Man Submarine Man]'s ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7HwhNfJFds Foot in your Nose]'' starts out sounding like a "self destruct" alarm...then suddenly becomes an absurdly chill-sounding rap song roughly one minute and fifty seconds into itself.
 
 
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