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?
Modulation fluctuates in popularity. About a quarter of number one hits from the 60s through the 90s utilized it, whereas in the 2010s only one number one hit did.
Why the key change has disappeared from top-charting tune - NPR - All Things Considered
Edit: I realize this doesn’t answer your question, but I’m not sure there really is an answer. It’s such an old technique, musically speaking.
You see it in classical music all the time, like minor to major changes leading to crescendos or other larger shifts leading to the end of a movement. Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin. It’s nothing new.
Agree. But mine is a question about style as much as anything. It’s use in 80s ballads is distinctive. Same key throughout song then a singular upshift for the last verse / chorus. I’m not referring to music that modulates throughout the whole piece, or makes a change near the end having done it in several other places.
Yes that’s exactly the pattern I’m talking about. The upwards change is only used at the end where it’s used twice. “I just called” is from 1984 though. Through digging around the earliest I’ve found the style is in Penny Lane 1967. Am a bit on the fence about that though as the key shifts a lot through the song, but there’s a definite key change up for emphasis on the last chorus.
Probably not the correct answer, but a lot of Jim Steinman composed/produced songs have that cheesy power ballad flair to it.
I’m pretty musically ignorant, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the answer was Chicago.
There is a cool video by David Bennett about this. I can’t seem to remember if he mentions who was the first one, but he puts on a lot of samples I wasn’t aware of
