Madonna · True Blue

Papa Don’t Preach

Papa Don’t Preach is in A flat major at 122 beats per minute.

Tempo

122 BPM · Allegromedian of 156 analyses · 121.9–122 across the middle eight tenths

Key: A♭ major4 flats · the key most of the analyses agreed on
Agreement: 97%share of analyses that agreed
Analyses: 156people who ran the extractor
One beat: 491.8milliseconds, 60,000 ÷ BPM
Tuning: 434.2Hz · -23 cents from A 440
Dynamics: 4.16dB the level wanders from its average
Loudness: 0.887Essentia's 0–1 scale, not dB
Danceability: 1.441Essentia'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

156 independent analyses of this recording were submitted to AcousticBrainz. All but a handful of them — 97% — put it in A flat major, a key signature of 4 flats. The tempo printed above is the median of the 156 readings; 97% of them land within 2% of it, and they barely differ at all.

At 122 BPM one beat lasts 491.8 milliseconds, so a sixteenth note is 123 ms and a dotted eighth 368.9 ms — the delay times for this recording. Counted half as fast it is 61 BPM, counted twice as fast 244. A score would mark that Allegro, by the ranges this site uses.

The analyses put the reference pitch of the recording at 434.2 Hz, which is 23 cents below 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 4.16 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 0.887 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 flat 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 A♭ major

Each of these differs from A♭ 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 122 BPM

Note value	Beats	Milliseconds	Hertz
Whole note	4	1967.2	0.51
Half note	2	983.6	1.02
Dotted quarter	1.5	737.7	1.36
Quarter note (one beat)	1	491.8	2.03
Quarter triplet	0.667	327.9	3.05
Dotted eighth	0.75	368.9	2.71
Eighth note	0.5	245.9	4.07
Eighth triplet	0.333	163.9	6.1
Dotted sixteenth	0.375	184.4	5.42
Sixteenth note	0.25	123	8.13
Sixteenth triplet	0.167	82	12.2
Thirty-second note	0.125	61.5	16.27

Half time 61 BPM · double time 244 BPM. Every row is one beat (491.8 ms) times the fraction in the second column.

Closest in key and tempo

Recordings in A flat major, ordered by how near their tempo is to 122 BPM. A calculation, not a recommendation.

All songs in A flat major All songs at 122 BPM A♭ major at 120–129 BPM Madonna

MusicBrainz collapses 41 recording ids into this one. Recording id cc63a878-8663-41ea-884e-873625b6af68.