Song FinderWhat 643 Chart Hits Say About BPM, Key and Camelot (2026 Data)
We measured the tempo, musical key and Camelot code of 846 songs from the Apple Music charts in 12 countries. Median BPM by genre, the most common keys, and the half-time trap that breaks most BPM tools.
Most online "BPM by genre" charts quote round numbers without showing a sample. This analysis uses the clearly defined snapshot described below.
We pulled the most-played charts from 12 countries on Apple Music — the US, UK, Japan, Germany, Brazil, France, Korea, Mexico, Spain, Italy, Canada and Australia — resolved each track to its ISRC, and looked up the tempo and key for every one.
- 846 tracks after removing cross-country duplicates
- 643 returned both a tempo and a key
- 671 carry a genre label
Everything below comes from that set. Where a number would be misleading, we say so.
Median BPM by genre
Median, not average. A single 208 BPM outlier drags an average around; the median tells you where the middle of the genre actually sits.
| Genre | Tracks | Median BPM | Range | Most common key |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| J-Pop | 33 | 115 | 76–201 | 10B — D Major |
| Country | 45 | 116 | 49–204 | 11B — A Major |
| Pop | 95 | 118 | 65–174 | 3B — C♯/D♭ Major |
| Hip-Hop/Rap | 140 | 120 | 73–208 | 4A — F Minor |
| R&B/Soul | 14 | 123 | 97–186 | 3B — C♯/D♭ Major |
| Alternative | 22 | 124 | 80–184 | 10B — D Major |
| Dance | 13 | 124 | 100–138 | 9A — E Minor |
| K-Pop | 39 | 126 | 77–180 | 3B — C♯/D♭ Major |
| Latin | 59 | 128 | 64–196 | 6A — G Minor |
| Rock | 37 | 133 | 88–174 | 9B — G Major |
Only genres with at least 10 analysed tracks are listed. Dance and R&B/Soul have small samples — treat those two as indicative, not settled.
The headline is how narrow the spread is. Nine of the ten genres sit between 115 and 128 BPM. Charting music, whatever the label on it, clusters hard around 120.
The tempo distribution
| BPM band | Tracks |
|---|---|
| Under 80 | 26 |
| 80–89 | 36 |
| 90–99 | 86 |
| 100–109 | 83 |
| 110–119 | 77 |
| 120–129 | 136 |
| 130–139 | 58 |
| 140–149 | 40 |
| 150–159 | 33 |
| 160–169 | 23 |
| 170–179 | 22 |
| 180 and above | 23 |
The 120–129 band alone holds more than one track in five. If you are building a set and want the widest possible pool of compatible material, that is where it lives.
Which keys actually show up
All 24 Camelot codes appear in the sample. They are nowhere near evenly spread.
| Camelot | Key | Tracks |
|---|---|---|
| 3B | C♯/D♭ Major | 63 |
| 9B | G Major | 42 |
| 10A | B Minor | 39 |
| 9A | E Minor | 38 |
| 10B | D Major | 37 |
| 4A | F Minor | 36 |
| 12A | C♯/D♭ Minor | 34 |
| 6A | G Minor | 33 |
| 11A | F♯/G♭ Minor | 31 |
| 11B | A Major | 31 |
At the other end, 5B — E♭ Major turns up 8 times and 1A — G♯/A♭ Minor 9 times. The most common key is roughly eight times more likely than the rarest.
C♯/D♭ major topping the list is not what most people would guess — it is an awkward key on a guitar and a black-note key on a piano. It is, however, exactly where a lot of vocal-led pop lands after producers pitch a track up a semitone to brighten it.
Major versus minor is almost a coin flip: 334 major against 309 minor. The idea that hits are overwhelmingly minor-key does not survive contact with this sample.
What this means if you are mixing
The three most common codes — 3B, 9B, 10A — are not adjacent on the wheel, so a chart-heavy set will not flow on its own. But two of the top five, 9A and 10A, are one step apart, and 9B and 10B likewise. Those two pairs are where you get long, uninterrupted runs from mainstream material.
Our DJ Set Generator does that ordering for you: give it one track and it builds a sequence where every transition stays in key. If you already have a playlist, the Playlist Analyzer shows its tempo and key profile and proposes a harmonic running order.
The half-time trap — read this before trusting any BPM number
Look again at the ranges in the genre table. Country spans 49 to 204 BPM. That is not a real spread of tempos; it is two detection errors sitting at either end.
Real examples from this dataset:
| Track | Reported | Almost certainly |
|---|---|---|
| Tennessee Whiskey — Chris Stapleton | 49 | ~98 (half-time) |
| Last Night — Morgan Wallen | 204 | ~102 (double-time) |
| 7 Summers — Morgan Wallen | 204 | ~102 (double-time) |
Tempo detection works by finding a repeating pulse. When a song's pulse is ambiguous — a slow ballad with a busy hi-hat, or a sparse track with a heavy backbeat — the algorithm can lock onto a pulse that is exactly half or double the one a human would tap.
The tell is simple: if two sources disagree by a factor of almost exactly two, one of them has halved or doubled. Neither is lying, and neither is useful until you decide which pulse you actually mean.
This is why our Song BPM & Key Finder shows you the figure it found rather than a single confident number, and flags it when a second source comes back at roughly twice or half the value. A tool that quietly picks one and shows it as fact is hiding the only thing you needed to know.
Caveats worth stating
- Charts, not the catalogue. This is what was popular in July 2026, not a cross-section of recorded music. Genres that do not chart are absent.
- One recording per song. ISRC identifies a specific master. A remaster, live take or remix has its own ISRC and can have a different key entirely.
- Genre comes from the store, not the sound. Apple files a release under a category; a track from a film soundtrack gets filed as Soundtrack whatever it actually sounds like.
- Small samples are small. Dance (13) and R&B/Soul (14) are the two to distrust.
Frequently asked questions
What is the average BPM of a hit song? In this sample of 643 analysed chart tracks the median falls inside the 120–129 band, which is also the single largest band at 136 tracks. Nine of the ten genres measured have a median between 115 and 128 BPM.
Which musical key is most common in popular music? C♯/D♭ major (Camelot 3B), with 63 of 643 tracks. G major (9B) is second at 42. Overall the split between major and minor keys is close to even — 334 to 309.
Is Hip-Hop faster than Pop? Marginally. Median 120 BPM against 118. The difference between genres is far smaller than most BPM charts imply.
Why do two BPM tools give me different numbers for the same song? Usually because one has locked onto half or double the pulse. If the two figures are almost exactly a factor of two apart, that is what happened. Pick the pulse you would tap along to.
Data collected 29 July 2026 from Apple Music most-played charts across 12 countries. Tempo and key came from audio analysis cross-checked against ISRC. This is a fixed snapshot; the figures do not update with current charts.