David Bowie · The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars

It Ain’t Easy

It Ain’t Easy is in D minor at 133.2 beats per minute.

Tempo

133 BPM · Allegromedian of 293 analyses · 133.2–133.6 across the middle eight tenths

Key: D minor1 flat · the key most of the analyses agreed on
Agreement: 84%share of analyses that agreed
Analyses: 293people who ran the extractor
One beat: 450.5milliseconds, 60,000 ÷ BPM
Tuning: 436.2Hz · -15 cents from A 440
Dynamics: 8.7dB the level wanders from its average
Loudness: 0.316Essentia's 0–1 scale, not dB
Danceability: 0.982Essentia'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

293 independent analyses of this recording were submitted to AcousticBrainz. Most of them — 84% — put it in D minor, a key signature of 1 flat. The tempo printed above is the median of the 293 readings; 99% of them land within 2% of it, and they barely differ at all.

At 133.2 BPM one beat lasts 450.5 milliseconds, so a sixteenth note is 112.6 ms and a dotted eighth 337.8 ms — the delay times for this recording. Counted half as fast it is 66.6 BPM, counted twice as fast 266.4. A score would mark that Allegro, by the ranges this site uses.

The analyses put the reference pitch of the recording at 436.2 Hz, which is 15 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 8.7 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 0.316 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 D 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 D minor

Each of these differs from D 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 133 BPM

Note value	Beats	Milliseconds	Hertz
Whole note	4	1801.8	0.55
Half note	2	900.9	1.11
Dotted quarter	1.5	675.7	1.48
Quarter note (one beat)	1	450.5	2.22
Quarter triplet	0.667	300.3	3.33
Dotted eighth	0.75	337.8	2.96
Eighth note	0.5	225.2	4.44
Eighth triplet	0.333	150.2	6.66
Dotted sixteenth	0.375	168.9	5.92
Sixteenth note	0.25	112.6	8.88
Sixteenth triplet	0.167	75.1	13.32
Thirty-second note	0.125	56.3	17.76

Half time 66.6 BPM · double time 266.4 BPM. Every row is one beat (450.5 ms) times the fraction in the second column.

The same title by somebody else

It Ain’t Easy2PacE♭ major91BPM

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 D minor, ordered by how near their tempo is to 133 BPM. A calculation, not a recommendation.

All songs in D minor All songs at 133 BPM D minor at 130–139 BPM David Bowie

MusicBrainz collapses 12 recording ids into this one. Recording id df367f8e-3f2d-4f37-84c7-5e6617e16258.