Topic: Best ever key change

[Johnboy]

Perfect Skin - Lloyd Cole and the Commotions

[Twed]

Honestly cant hear much of a difference so i'll bow out of this one. I'm sure there'll be loads I like though.

A really simple example is you singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and then singing it higher/lower but still in tune.

[kngen]

Sounds like he changes mode while sticking to the same notes. The bass (which determine key more than anything else) disappears in preparation for the the change. Moves from a key centre of Eb (Dorian mode) to one of Bb (Aeolian mode or minor mode). It's more like a chord change in the same key than some of the key changes others have described so far, which are like sharp corners turned in the music.

Cheers for that! I knew there was some musical sorcery afoot, and I honestly nearly wrote 'modal change' in my first post but then thought 'nah, you're out of your depth here, son'.

I think what makes it so well is that he hints at the change with the tweak in counterpoint in the lead in (as well as the drop off in bass, as you say) so when the change takes place it resolves that counterpoint in a hugely satisifying way rather than making an unexpected shift in key. It's fucking spiritual either way. Clever bastard.

[Dyl Spinks]

James Brown/The JBs' Doing it to Death has a good couple of key changes.

Bruce Springsteen's The Ties that Bind, coming out of Clarence's solo and into the third verse with the key change, is killer and puts all the right kinds of strain on Bruce's River-era voice.

[The Culture Bunker]

The Supremes' 'I Hear a Symphony' has some lovely key changes at end of it.

[Satchmo Distel]

Just about every track on Pet Sounds has a key change, and not one of them is obvious or cliched.

Wouldn't It Be Nice starts with a key change, has a key change going into the middle section, and
a marvellous return change coming out again.

God Only Knows seems to teeter between two keys, you never quite know which key it is in, and
the middle section again has a brilliant subtle change and when the vocal comes back in...

I'm Waiting For The Day is a more abrupt set of changes but still amazing.

[Darles Chickens]

Wouldn't It Be Nice starts with a key change, has a key change going into the middle section, and
a marvellous return change coming out again.

Yes, for me, Wouldn't It Be Nice is the first song I think of with an incredibly bold and unusual key change (specifically, that one into the middle 8).  It should be incredibly jarring, because it doesn't even have a melody line during the change providing some harmonic sense, but Brian Wilson was a genius and just makes it work.

Oliver's Army is a nice one - starts in A, then the bridge section jumps to the unrelated G# minor, and transitions through a bunch of chords before arriving at its new key, B, where it stays for the final verse and chorus.  It's subtle as you don't notice that it starts and finishes in different keys.  Off the top of my head, Nik Kershaw's "The Riddle" is another one which does that, again using a crazy chord sequence in its bridge to arrive there.

[non capisco]

Bruce Springsteen's The Ties that Bind, coming out of Clarence's solo and into the third verse with the key change, is killer and puts all the right kinds of strain on Bruce's River-era voice.

Ooh yeah, that one is a beaut. 

Harlem by Bill Withers has at least five of the fuckers. It just keeps building. What a dazzler of a tune.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbbwiE2GgkE

[DJ Bob Hoskins]

Be aware that there's a difference between a key change and a modulation.

If we're including modulations, the bit in Autobahn at around 15' 35" where it shifts from G down to D gives me a tiny shiver of joy every time.

Best key change is bonjovi living on a prayer. 3 semitones.

This is the correct answer.

[falafel]

Honestly cant hear much of a difference so i'll bow out of this one. I'm sure there'll be loads I like though.

If you've got Netflix go to Michael Bolton's Valentine Special and skip to where the timer says 31.25 remaining.

[Darles Chickens]

If you've got Netflix go to Michael Bolton's Valentine Special and skip to where the timer says 31.25 remaining.

Or, even better, to where the timer says 0:01 remaining!

[falafel]

Oh come on, it's basically an hour and a half of Comedy Bang! Bang! Patchy but with spots of brilliance, a bit like my hairline

[popcorn]

Michael Jackson. Man in the Mirror.

"Make that... change!"

[TheMonk]

Oliver's Army is a nice one - starts in A, then the bridge section jumps to the unrelated G# minor, and transitions through a bunch of chords before arriving at its new key, B, where it stays for the final verse and chorus.  It's subtle as you don't notice that it starts and finishes in different keys.  Off the top of my head, Nik Kershaw's "The Riddle" is another one which does that, again using a crazy chord sequence in its bridge to arrive there.

Wow. I must have heard that song a thousand times and never noticed that.

[Twed]

If we're including modulations, the bit in Autobahn at around 15' 35" where it shifts from G down to D gives me a tiny shiver of joy every time.

Fun fact: that was done in references to shifting down from the gear G to D on German cars.

[NoSleep]

From German to Deutsch?

[Johnboy]

Wow. I must have heard that song a thousand times and never noticed that.

he does it in The Greatest Thing too from Punch The Clock

[object-lesson]

Not sure of the precise definition of a key change. Does this count? One most ecstatic moments in the history of music, from the beginning of the fade to Torn Curtain by Television.

https://youtu.be/Tnl292LAD0w?t=381

[NoSleep]

No key change there. Torn Curtain is pretty solidly in B minor from start to finish.

[object-lesson]

Is there a name for the bit when the guitar suddenly goes bruup brup bom... dramatically down in pitch(?) then? Probably not. My appreciation of music is 90% intuition, that's the trouble, haven't got a clue about the technical side.

[Mr Banlon]

Baden Powell Canto De Ossanha : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgS16Ipnr2E

[the hum]

Very likely not best ever, but Numbers by Frost (something of an ode to The Police's Synchronicity I suspect, but great in its own right) has a very goose-pimply change in the closing section https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exnCIi-MLkc.

[famethrowa]

Credit where it's due, Chain Reaction (Diana Ross/Bee Gees) goes all over the place and manages to change key 4 or more times as it goes on. The step-up a semitone in the middle of the chorus is particularly rewarding and pushes it up and up.

Is there a name for the bit when the guitar suddenly goes bruup brup bom... dramatically down in pitch(?) then?

Got an example?

[Twed]

Is it just a whammy bar dive they're thinking of?

[kalowski]

Couldn't find the stand up key change moment, but it happens.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

I like that one in The Way We Were, from the early seventies, by whoever it was.  It comes just after the line 'or has time rewritten every line?'

Also, the one in the intro to Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin.