Doug C -

It's not at all uncommon for the "mixer" who sets up a tape or CD to speed up or slow down an original studio recording to make it fit to an alloted "timeslot" on the published tape/CD, and this quite often causes a pitch shift (or, if you will, a key change). Certain artists, or the studios they use, are pretty good about producing "on pitch" published records, but others make it an exercise in masochism to try to "find their pitch" to play along with the record.

The tendency to do it deliberately probably is less today, at least with the "name performers" since it seems half (or less) filled CDs sell for the same price as ones that're more or less full. No need to "squeeze" the pieces to get it all on.

It is possible that your tape player wasn't up to speed; but it's also possible that they just "adjusted the pitch" to fill the tape.

With the movie bit, the possibility exists that the soundtrack was recorded while the "dubbers" watched an early edit of the film, and the soundtrack was later matched to a "retake" where they danced a little faster or slower. A simple speed change on the tape could match things up to the dance steps, or sych with the lips, but would change the apparent key. It probably has always been easier to synch things by changing the sound speed/pitch than to change the frame rate of the video.

John