[Blansky]

Originally Posted by OverGeared

I'm a bit tone deaf, so key changes aren't as apparent to me as they are for others, but I do share your interest in what makes popular music popular in the first place. For the last several years, I've been following Tom Breihan's "The Number Ones" column over at Stereogum, where he's tenaciously cataloging every song to ever hit #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 (aka, the "pop" chart.)

https://www.stereogum.com/category/the-number-ones/

He's into the early-mid 2000s right now, which is around where my interest in pop music began to wane, but the archives are chick full of terrific explorations on how musical tastes, experimentation (and fear of experimentation,) politics, and U. S. culture as a whole influenced what artists and songs were able to make it to the top, starting back in 1957.

Beware: you can lose entire afternoons reading these columns if you're not careful.

Thanks for the info.

I guess one sign of a key change near the end of a song is it's sort of sweet, and an...."ok guys ...big finish here".