Basic Trope: A song ends by changing the key, usually sometime in the last chorus.
- Straight: A pop song modulates up half a step before its last chorus.
- Exaggerated:
- A pop song modulates up half a step before its last chorus. And then does it again. And again. And again, until it goes through the whole circle of keys chromatically, back to where it started.
- A pop song modulates up by more than an octave in the final chorus.
- Downplayed: The song modulates up one-tenth of a step, barely discernible.
- Justified:
- The songwriter adds in the key change because it emphasises an important event in the lyrics.
- The final chorus was meant to be sung in the same key as the rest of the song, but during the last line the singer accidentally sang it a half-step higher than usual. His band decided to keep the defective line because it sounded better.
- Inverted:
- The song changes key some time earlier, and then changes back in the middle of the last chorus.
- The song modulates downward before the last chorus.
- Subverted: The chorus starts with an instrumental break in a different key, then changes back when the vocals come in...
- Double Subverted: ...then it changes again in the middle of the chorus.
- Parodied:
- An extreme metal band adds a conspicuous key change to the last chorus of an extremely atonal song.
- The bridge is just "I'll inhale even more helium/and all the top 10 charts, I'll top 'em" sung 4 times in a row, with the key going a half step up every time it's repeated.
- Zig Zagged: Some albums by one pop artist are full of key changes, others have none to speak of.
- Averted: The whole song uses the same key signature.
- Enforced: A producer pressures a band to write more songs with this trope, in order to be more commercially successful.
- Lampshaded: The lyrics reference the key change when it happens.
- Invoked: The lyrics contain the two vocalists discussing whether ot not they should add a key change, they decide on the affirmative.
- Exploited: The rest of the band, while playing a live version of the song, notice that the singer is singing at the wrong key half a step higher than usual - and then change keys with him, deciding to just go with it.
- Defied: The lyrics reference the lack of key changes.
- Discussed: A song has a verse about why the trope is overused.
- Conversed: A songwriter and the singer he's working with talk about the merits of the trope.
- Deconstructed: The recording artist is accused of using Autotune in their music, and subsequently denounced for abusing it even though other popular musicians do the exact same thing.
- Reconstructed: A behind-the-scenes video shows that, in fact, all vocals were entirely organic (i.e., not Autotuned, and the status quo is restored.
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