Modulation / key changes have been used in music for ages but the style I’m talking about is the distinctive last verse (or chorus) sudden key change up to power through to the end. Seems to have come about sometime in the 60s/70s and was everywhere in the 80s onwards.

Examples:

Heaven is a place on earth - Belinda Carlisle

I will always love you - Whitney Houston

But who popularised it? What was the first big song to do it and set the style for the genre?

  • Mr_Blott@feddit.uk
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    1 month ago

    Growing up in the 70s I first noticed it on Stevie Wonder’s I Just Called

    That was a maaaassive hit so I wonder if that caused an uptick in the use