After two days of heavy rotation on my iPod substitute, I hereby nominate the Superman Theme for best piece of orchestral cheese of the 20th century. For four minutes and twelve seconds, three themes battle for dominance through a half-dozen crescendos and the grandest use of the gratuitious key change in modern music. And trust me, I know from gratuituous key changes.
Yes, I’m counting the days.
Gratutious key changes? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
http://www.gearchange.org
“Who or what is a truck driver’s gear change?
Many writers and arrangers feel that when their song is in risk of getting a bit tired, it can be given a fresh lease of life by shifting the whole song up a key, usually in between choruses, towards the beginning of a “repeat-till-fade” section. You may have heard this technique informally referred to as “modulation”, but the correct ethnomusicological term for the phenomenon is the truck driver’s gear change. This reflects the utterly predictable and laboured nature of the transition, evoking a tired and over-worked trucker ramming the gearstick into the new position with his – or, to be fair, her – fist.
Contrary to what many people seem to think, the truck driver’s gear change is in no way inventive, interesting or acceptable: it is in fact an utterly appalling and unimaginative admission that you’ve run out of inspiration and the song should have ended one minute ago; but you’re under pressure to make something which can be stretched out to the length of a single. The concept of the truck driver’s gear change seems to transcend all musical styles, from Perry Como to The Misfits, although my investigations reveal that it’s most prevalent in mainstream pop, and, let’s face it, it’s unlikely to feature in hip-hop. But who’s to say.”
Yes, but I don’t have to play that music.
Best keychange ever: The Rainbow Connection.
I wish I could remember where or when I heard it, but at some point, there was a version floating around that replaced this line:
“All of us under its spell, we know that it’s probably magic…”
with this line:
“All of us under its spell, we know that it’s time for a key change…”
Listen to it & sign along. Trust me – it fits so well, that I actually had to find a lyric page to remember the real lyric…
Second place goes to anyone who throws an unexpected key change into the Star Spangled Banner, just before “and the rocket’s red glare”
Of course, the seventy-six key changes in The Gettysburg Address are in a league by themselves…
Brian, do you have “Aiko Aiko” as sung by Sebastian the Crab? That’s my favorite for key changes, because he keeps telling you that the key changes. The last time, he says “That’s the last and final key change, ’cause it’s getting too high to sing!”