"Build me up Buttercup" changes up for the only time in the song, ten seconds from the end. Hardcore!
― Mark G, Monday, 19 March 2012 07:19 (1 year ago) Permalink
Intervention by Arcade Fire has a great key change from C to G that sounds like a bridge at first.
― B-Boy Bualadh Bos (ecuador_with_a_c), Monday, 19 March 2012 10:27 (1 year ago) Permalink
Right, let's have a revive.
At Devon Record Club on Tuesday Tom said something along the lines of "all songs with key changes are horrible and rubbish", which is quite a statement.
After some confused discussion, we came to the conclusion that he specifically meant the type of really noticable, obvious, stadium-pleasing "take the chorus up a notch for euphoria" key changes (like Livin' On A Prayer) rather than the "subtle shift in the song's feel" key changes (like We Can Work It Out).
Which is kind of fair enough, but I'm determined to prove him wrong.
So, more examples please, of both kinds...
― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, 10 May 2012 12:17 (1 year ago) Permalink
this is good
― owenf, Thursday, 10 May 2012 12:58 (1 year ago) Permalink
i love the key changes in beyonce's 'love on top'!
― 40oz of tears (Jordan), Thursday, 10 May 2012 13:42 (1 year ago) Permalink
Worst - the end-of-bridge, last-verse upward key change, often accompanied by slowing down the last verse for added melodrama, as in the aforementioned "I Will Always Love You". The suspense-building last-verse upward key change is a hackneyed songwriting device used that in the hands of less adroit invariably sounds trite and cliched. Except in the adroit hands of a select few: the Who taking each verse of "My Generation" up a key, until by the end the song is in four different keys.
The Beach Boys were the masters of the unexpected key change. "Pom Pom Play Girl", though s slight song, manages to work every one of the 12 major chords into it, sometimes in major-7th variations, but avoids using even one minor chord.
"Dance, Dance, Dance" has a great modulation to a higher key in the last verse - a common musical feature, except that Brian Wilson starts the verse in the normal key an shifts upwards unexpectedly a few seconds into the verse after starting it in the usual key. But the best use of this technique is in "Girls on the Beach". This song, about how the attractive ladies lining the CA coastline beaches are not unattainable princesses, is set to five-part harmonies promising "one waits there for you" if you are respectful, each of the three verses featuring an unexpected key change smack dab in the middle as the title phrase is sung, only to revert to the original key near the end of each verse. You wouldn't expect any more key changes in a song where every verse changes key twice, but the final verse brings another, incredibly unexpected upward key change not at the conventional place right after the bridge, but rather one-quarter of the way through the last verse (on the crucial word "couples" no less), followed only a few seconds later by another upward key change that was already baked into the middle of every verse at the title phrase, before returning down one key on the last syllable of the phrase "and with their boys tonight" into a vocal/instrumental flourish (which appears nowhere else in the song - but again so skillfully blended in that it can easily go unnoticed unless pointed out) that leads to the outro and fadeout. Last-verse key changes are commonplace, but who else but BW would change the key one-quarter of the way into the third verse, in a song that already has two key changes built into every verse to begin with?
Incredifreakingbrilliant...
― Lee626, Thursday, 10 May 2012 13:57 (1 year ago) Permalink
So many country songs from the 60s/70s have a modulation. "Coal Miner's Daughter" moves twice, both 1/2 steps.
A minor third step up seems to be more rare, but the Grateful Dead did it in their live version of "Around and Around" when Bob Weir could get up that high.
There's also that weird change in "Right Off" from In A Silent Way, I think it's a tritone change
― Johnny Hotcox, Thursday, 10 May 2012 14:04 (1 year ago) Permalink