Elvis Costello & The Attractions · Armed Forces

Oliver’s Army

Oliver’s Army is in A major at 143 beats per minute.

Tempo

143 BPM · Allegromedian of 145 analyses · 142.7–143.1 across the middle eight tenths

Key: A major3 sharps · the key most of the analyses agreed on
Agreement: 96%share of analyses that agreed
Analyses: 145people who ran the extractor
One beat: 419.6milliseconds, 60,000 ÷ BPM
Tuning: 439.5Hz · -2 cents from A 440
Dynamics: 3.99dB the level wanders from its average
Loudness: 0.883Essentia's 0–1 scale, not dB
Danceability: 1.099Essentia'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

145 independent analyses of this recording were submitted to AcousticBrainz. All but a handful of them — 96% — put it in A major, a key signature of 3 sharps. The tempo printed above is the median of the 145 readings; 97% of them land within 2% of it, and they barely differ at all.

At 143 BPM one beat lasts 419.6 milliseconds, so a sixteenth note is 104.9 ms and a dotted eighth 314.7 ms — the delay times for this recording. Counted half as fast it is 71.5 BPM, counted twice as fast 286. A score would mark that Allegro, by the ranges this site uses.

The analyses put the reference pitch of the recording at 439.5 Hz, which is 2 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 3.99 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 0.883 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 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 143 BPM

Note value	Beats	Milliseconds	Hertz
Whole note	4	1678.3	0.6
Half note	2	839.2	1.19
Dotted quarter	1.5	629.4	1.59
Quarter note (one beat)	1	419.6	2.38
Quarter triplet	0.667	279.7	3.58
Dotted eighth	0.75	314.7	3.18
Eighth note	0.5	209.8	4.77
Eighth triplet	0.333	139.9	7.15
Dotted sixteenth	0.375	157.3	6.36
Sixteenth note	0.25	104.9	9.53
Sixteenth triplet	0.167	69.9	14.3
Thirty-second note	0.125	52.4	19.07

Half time 71.5 BPM · double time 286 BPM. Every row is one beat (419.6 ms) times the fraction in the second column.

Closest in key and tempo

Recordings in A major, ordered by how near their tempo is to 143 BPM. A calculation, not a recommendation.

All songs in A major All songs at 143 BPM A major at 140–149 BPM Elvis Costello & The Attractions

MusicBrainz collapses 26 recording ids into this one. Recording id 81c99e15-2aa8-4d90-b2f3-f11f2068a61a.