The moment I saw on the front page that Adele's "Easy On Me" was listed at 142 BPM, I was flabbergasted.
You only have to play the song while looking at a timer for about 15 seconds to see the BPM is far less than half that number.
You only have to play the song while looking at a timer for about 15 seconds to see the BPM is far less than half that number.
Andy Williams "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" is listed as 202 bpm. In some sense, this is correct. The song is in 6/8 time and if you count each of the six beats separately, there are 202 bpm, but this isn't how 6/8 works. Typically you would set the bpm based on a dotted quarter (= 3/8ths) instead of a quarter.
From a listener's perspective, 6/8 basically just means each beat is divided into 3 parts instead of 2. So in a "normal" 4/4 song, you'll hear a down-up, down-up repetition like KICK-up-SNARE-up-KICK-up-SNARE-up, with kick drums on downbeats of 1 and 3 and snare on downbeats of 2 and 4 with one upbeat after each. With 6/8, you'll hear KICK-up-up-SNARE-up-up basically.
(Note that this is distinct from 3/4 [waltz], where you'll hear KICK-up-SNARE-up-SNARE-up, but 3/4 is exceeding rare in popular modern music.)
So true, which is a shame, since 3/4 songs such as "Suspended in Gaffa" by Kate Bush or "All in All (This One Last Wild Waltz)" by Dexy's Midnight Runners are great to listen to and stick with you. Not to mention "Golden Brown" by The Stranglers - although that one is apparently in 12/8 and 13/8 for the riff [0].
My favourite modern waltz would have to be "Paristocrats" by Gonzales [1].
[0] https://www.goldradiouk.com/news/music/stranglers-golden-bro...
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