4 Inventive Key Changes in Pop Music

How about "Come On Eileen" by Dexy's Midnight Runners, Save Ferris, and others. Between the verse and refrain sounds like a downward shift, but the chords indicate an upward key change.

in recent years they virtually disappeared because they are too complicated

Huge comment section here, but hoping my head extends above the parapet.
Not sure if this is the best place to catch your attention David on the
key change aspect of Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life" that made it's first outing in 1948.
It's not a pop song but I'm hoping this suggestion draws your attention.
The song contains a dazzlingly large number of key changes that I have tried but failed to count.
I am enthralled by the beautiful melody, harmonies and emotion in the
main part of the song after the long introduction, which is equally
enjoyable and musically very clever – but is eclipsed by the inspired main song
with its awesome key progressions.
There have been numerous cover versions but the one that knocks me out
is Lady Gaga's featured on her 2014 album "Cheek to Cheek". I'd be happy to
know if this song breaks the record for the greatest number of key
changes … but I'm sure there are other interesting musical features
that you David would be able to tease out of it. Strayhorn was such a
genius. He wrote too few songs.

I've always liked the key change in New Kid In Town, where they decided to sing the last verse in G before falling back to E for the final chorus.

I think the reason we don’t see the “sophisticated” key changes post mid 1970s is many of the songwriters in the 50 and 60’s were—consciously or unconsciously—influenced by the popular songwriters in the great songbook era of the 30s, 40’s and 50’s. All the young writers coming out of the Brill Building machine, Motown and other notables we’re deeply grounded in these influences, as was Paul McCartney and others. This tradition gradually fell away. Thanks for the great content. Keep them coming.

For me the knockout thing in Uptown Girl is slipping in that Bm chord for "makes up" instead of the perhaps expected Dm chord that was used for "wants from". It is genius.

At 3:40 he says “fall into new key of B flat” but key signature still has C# F# G# which is key of A major. I’m confused

Space oddity had a good key change

Staying with guilty pleasure music –
the "time to kill" bridge of Nik Kershaw's The Riddle is harmonically interesting – it starts with what feels like a violent key change, which twelve bars later turns out to be clearing space for a more familiar truck-driver-type modulation
One I just thought of was Ride Into The Sun by Velvet Underground – 40% of the way through that song there's a rather abrupt key change, it then has an equally abrupt (but not illogical) route back to the home key, before the song closes out with a plagal cadence riff, as all Lou Reed songs must!
(A more comical take on "the abrupt key change and the escape route away from it" is My American Friend by John Otway, where it sounds as if, in the nick of time, he remembered his lack of vocal range).
BTW: Yes I always thought the bridge of We've Only Just Begun, or rather the transitions to and from it, ranked among the great key changes in pop.

In Bruce Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart”, there’s a key change in the instrumental break. It changes the feel of the next verse, even though it’s dropping back into the original key.

Thanks so much for these videos, my music theory is really quite non-existent but the way you break down songs and use music terminology and clear music notation to describe what is going on is really helpful in understanding the mechanics of it all. I know you've said in previous videos that music theory is really just a tool which you can use to describe why songs make you feel a certain way and this point made me think about theory in a whole new way. Watching these videos makes me feel a lot more confident in learning music theory, your explanations are fantastic!

I just watched unnas annus so yeah

Can you analyze this song's hidden and clever key change at 2:51? Spanish pop song from 1986 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX_o4oT3p6k

The key change From E to C in Uptown Girl is known in classical terms as a deceptive cadence. That is because the D# in the B chord goes to E as it normally would but that E is the third of the C chord instead of the root of the E chord. It happens all the time in classical and jazz music.

Drive In Saturday?