Don Henley · Building the Perfect Beast

The Boys of Summer

The Boys of Summer is in F sharp major at 88.5 beats per minute.

Tempo

89 BPM · Andantemedian of 192 analyses · 88.4–88.7 across the middle eight tenths

Key: F♯ major6 sharps · the key most of the analyses agreed on
Agreement: 94%share of analyses that agreed
Analyses: 192people who ran the extractor
One beat: 678milliseconds, 60,000 ÷ BPM
Tuning: 441.3Hz · +5 cents from A 440
Dynamics: 4.62dB the level wanders from its average
Loudness: 0.777Essentia's 0–1 scale, not dB
Danceability: 1.017Essentia'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

192 independent analyses of this recording were submitted to AcousticBrainz. Most of them — 94% — put it in F sharp major, a key signature of 6 sharps. The tempo printed above is the median of the 192 readings; 94% of them land within 2% of it, and they barely differ at all.

At 88.5 BPM one beat lasts 678 milliseconds, so a sixteenth note is 169.5 ms and a dotted eighth 508.5 ms — the delay times for this recording. Counted half as fast it is 44.3 BPM, counted twice as fast 177. A score would mark that Andante, by the ranges this site uses.

The analyses put the reference pitch of the recording at 441.3 Hz, which is 5 cents above concert A at 440 Hz — the sort of drift a tape machine or a slightly different mastering leaves behind. That is a fact about this transfer of the music, not about how it was played.

The dynamic complexity of the recording measures 4.62 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 0.777 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 F sharp major; 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 F♯ major

Each of these differs from F♯ major 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 89 BPM

Note value	Beats	Milliseconds	Hertz
Whole note	4	2711.9	0.37
Half note	2	1355.9	0.74
Dotted quarter	1.5	1016.9	0.98
Quarter note (one beat)	1	678	1.48
Quarter triplet	0.667	452	2.21
Dotted eighth	0.75	508.5	1.97
Eighth note	0.5	339	2.95
Eighth triplet	0.333	226	4.43
Dotted sixteenth	0.375	254.2	3.93
Sixteenth note	0.25	169.5	5.9
Sixteenth triplet	0.167	113	8.85
Thirty-second note	0.125	84.7	11.8

Half time 44.3 BPM · double time 177 BPM. Every row is one beat (678 ms) times the fraction in the second column.

Closest in key and tempo

Recordings in F sharp major, ordered by how near their tempo is to 89 BPM. A calculation, not a recommendation.

All songs in F sharp major All songs at 89 BPM F♯ major at 80–89 BPM

MusicBrainz collapses 7 recording ids into this one. Recording id 5067ae6b-1414-4702-933b-e6ad3c51a0e7.