The Cranberries · To the Faithful Departed

Forever Yellow Skies

Forever Yellow Skies is in C minor at 73.1 beats per minute.

Tempo

73 BPM · Adagiomedian of 176 analyses · 73–142.4 across the middle eight tenths

Key: C minor3 flats · the key most of the analyses agreed on
Agreement: 66%share of analyses that agreed
Analyses: 176people who ran the extractor
One beat: 820.8milliseconds, 60,000 ÷ BPM
Tuning: 442Hz · +8 cents from A 440
Dynamics: 3.13dB the level wanders from its average
Loudness: 0.892Essentia's 0–1 scale, not dB
Danceability: 1.144Essentia'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

176 independent analyses of this recording were submitted to AcousticBrainz. A bare majority of them — 66% — put it in C minor, a key signature of 3 flats. The tempo printed above is the median of the 176 readings; 67% of them land within 2% of it, and the middle eight tenths of them run from 73 to 142.4 BPM.

At 73.1 BPM one beat lasts 820.8 milliseconds, so a sixteenth note is 205.2 ms and a dotted eighth 615.6 ms — the delay times for this recording. Counted half as fast it is 36.6 BPM, counted twice as fast 146.2. A score would mark that Adagio, by the ranges this site uses.

The analyses put the reference pitch of the recording at 442 Hz, which is 8 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 3.13 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 0.892 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 C 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 C minor

Each of these differs from C 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 73 BPM

Note value	Beats	Milliseconds	Hertz
Whole note	4	3283.2	0.3
Half note	2	1641.6	0.61
Dotted quarter	1.5	1231.2	0.81
Quarter note (one beat)	1	820.8	1.22
Quarter triplet	0.667	547.2	1.83
Dotted eighth	0.75	615.6	1.62
Eighth note	0.5	410.4	2.44
Eighth triplet	0.333	273.6	3.65
Dotted sixteenth	0.375	307.8	3.25
Sixteenth note	0.25	205.2	4.87
Sixteenth triplet	0.167	136.8	7.31
Thirty-second note	0.125	102.6	9.75

Half time 36.6 BPM · double time 146.2 BPM. Every row is one beat (820.8 ms) times the fraction in the second column.

Closest in key and tempo

Recordings in C minor, ordered by how near their tempo is to 73 BPM. A calculation, not a recommendation.

All songs in C minor The Cranberries

MusicBrainz collapses 5 recording ids into this one. Recording id d4a9e9d4-aec8-4c96-9b9c-052b3ea68a72.