Which pop songs are the most musically complex?

[Stumpy Pepys]

I'm aware Barry Manilow's Could It Be Magic borrows heavily from Chopin (at least in the prelude), but blimey—if this tablature is to be believed—the song contains, I think, 47 chords. In a genre that's often perfectly content with three.

Are there other mainstream pop songs this musically complex? Why not post them below (and show your working)?

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

I've got no workings to offer, but willing to have a punt on Hocus Pocus by Focus (no. 20 in the UK and #9 in the US) being a contender.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

A bit too coincidentally, this came up on my YouTube feed this morning:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnRxTW8GxT8

In which 'Never Gonna Let You Go' by Sergio Mendes (#4 US, 1983) is nominated for the title.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

for a two minute song written by two people with no training in music, this is a pretty complicated song

[johnr]

Turn it on Again by Genesis has an odd time signature for the main riff, and fuck knows about the 'chorus', which isn't really a chorus in the traditional sense.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2B1ub5g5L0k

Tony Banks explains

• "Musically, it's quite a complicated piece. For starters, it's in a funny time signature, 13/8 or something. Not that you'd really notice that - it seemed more natural to do that than it was to make it 12, which would have been the more normal. Chord-wise, it goes through loads and loads of chords. It's a very unlikely single in a way. The reason I think it works is because it sounds simple even though it isn't. I've always quite liked that. The Beach Boys were good at that - things that sound deceptively simple but when you actually look at them, they're really quite complicated."

[gjw100]

Pretty much anything that Jacob Collier is putting out right now. His knowledge of musical theory, chord structures etc is beyond genius level, and the multi-layered vocal arrangements that he employs are astonishingly complex - to the extent that if you didn't know better you'd swear he was coming up with chords that hadn't existed before. His version of 'Moon River', which won him a Grammy last year, although probably a little too OTT even by his standards, is a good example of his craft.

[Various Artist]

Blimey. I'm not actually sure whether I loved or hated that. Might take a bit more processing first.

[Satchmo Distel]

'The Only Living Boy in New York' by Simon and Garfunkel.

Dozens of Joni Mitchell tracks.

[johnr]

Blimey. I'm not actually sure whether I loved or hated that. Might take a bit more processing first.

Seems to me that he's taken a simple pop song - as per the OP - and just made it more complicated. And boring. IMHO of course...

[Fussbudget]

Yes it's the arrangement rather than the song that's complex. Interesting version but I could have done with more of the bits that sound like Steve Reich or Flying Lotus and fewer of the bits that sound like Michael Bublé meets Flying Pickets. The less said about the visuals the better