Aretha Franklin · Young, Gifted and Black

Rock Steady

Rock Steady is in A minor at 104.9 beats per minute.

Tempo

105 BPM · Andantemedian of 351 analyses · 104.9–105.2 across the middle eight tenths

Key: A minorno sharps and no flats · the key most of the analyses agreed on
Agreement: 99%share of analyses that agreed
Analyses: 351people who ran the extractor
One beat: 572milliseconds, 60,000 ÷ BPM
Tuning: 439.2Hz · -3 cents from A 440
Dynamics: 4.75dB the level wanders from its average
Loudness: 0.922Essentia's 0–1 scale, not dB
Danceability: 1.341Essentia's danceability, 0–3

Source: AcousticBrainz, dump of 2022-06-23 (CC0) · MusicBrainz core data, 2026-09-17 (CC0) · how each number is measured. Measured up to 23.06.2022 — AcousticBrainz stopped collecting in 2022, so nothing released after that date is here.

What the numbers say

351 independent analyses of this recording were submitted to AcousticBrainz. All but a handful of them — 99% — put it in A minor, a key signature of no sharps and no flats. The tempo printed above is the median of the 351 readings; 100% of them land within 2% of it, and they barely differ at all.

At 104.9 BPM one beat lasts 572 milliseconds, so a sixteenth note is 143 ms and a dotted eighth 429 ms — the delay times for this recording. Counted half as fast it is 52.5 BPM, counted twice as fast 209.8. A score would mark that Andante, by the ranges this site uses.

The analyses put the reference pitch of the recording at 439.2 Hz, which is 3 cents below concert A at 440 Hz — close enough to standard that a tuner would not argue. That is a fact about this transfer of the music, not about how it was played.

The dynamic complexity of the recording measures 4.75 dB: that is how far the level wanders from its own average, so a small number means a loud, flat master and a large one means a recording that still breathes. Its average loudness is 0.922 on Essentia's 0-to-1 scale, which is not decibels and is not comparable to a streaming service's number.

10 other recordings here are in A minor; the ones listed below are the closest in tempo.

Beats per bar are not in this dataset. AcousticBrainz's analysis reports a tempo, a key and a loudness, and no time signature at all, so this page does not print one — a 4/4 here would be a guess dressed as a measurement.

Keys that fit with A minor

Each of these differs from A minor by at most one accidental, or shares its tonic. That is the whole of what a mixing wheel encodes; here the relations are named instead of numbered.

Delay times at 105 BPM

Note value	Beats	Milliseconds	Hertz
Whole note	4	2287.9	0.44
Half note	2	1143.9	0.87
Dotted quarter	1.5	858	1.17
Quarter note (one beat)	1	572	1.75
Quarter triplet	0.667	381.3	2.62
Dotted eighth	0.75	429	2.33
Eighth note	0.5	286	3.5
Eighth triplet	0.333	190.7	5.25
Dotted sixteenth	0.375	214.5	4.66
Sixteenth note	0.25	143	6.99
Sixteenth triplet	0.167	95.3	10.49
Thirty-second note	0.125	71.5	13.99

Half time 52.5 BPM · double time 209.8 BPM. Every row is one beat (572 ms) times the fraction in the second column.

The same title by somebody else

Rock SteadyBad CompanyA minor100BPM

Matched on the title alone, so this list can hold a different song that happens to share a name. Nothing here claims one is a cover of the other.

Closest in key and tempo

Recordings in A minor, ordered by how near their tempo is to 105 BPM. A calculation, not a recommendation.

All songs in A minor All songs at 105 BPM A minor at 100–109 BPM Aretha Franklin

MusicBrainz collapses 20 recording ids into this one. Recording id 3f02df02-5207-4776-9839-5225c20acf7d.