80s Jams #25: Echo & The Bunnymen "The Killing Moon" (1984)

The centerpiece track of 1984's Ocean Rain, the epic "The Killing Moon" is the point at which Echo & the Bunnymen turned from second-string post-punkers into members of the pantheon of heroes to the mildly alienated suburban teens of the mid-'80s, up there with Depeche Mode and the Cure. Crucially, the band made an atypical move in the arrangement of this song by modulating upward for the chorus; historically, the upward modulation is used to signify happiness or the release of tension, and its use in the midst of the minor-key melancholy of the verse melody makes a huge dynamic shift in the song. -- Allmusic http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=33:kjfyxqldld6e