F# minor · Camelot 11A · 107 BPM
Bodyrock
by Moby
- 107
- BPM
- F# minor
- Key
- 11A
- Camelot
- 66
- Danceability
- 0
- Acousticness
Moby built "Bodyrock" around a sample he had carried with him for nearly two decades. The vocal came from "Love Rap" by Spoonie Gee and the Treacherous Three, which he had copied onto his first mixtape around 1981 off the Mr. Magic Show on WBLS. Heavily inspired by hip hop, the track also carried a guitar line influenced by "What We All Want" by Gang of Four, and Moby added orchestral elements to the chorus, finding it amusing to place such a flourish on what was essentially a hip-hop song. American rapper Nikki D performed additional vocals.
The single came out on July 12, 1999 as the third release from Play, his fifth studio album, and peaked at number 38 on the UK Singles Chart. Both of his managers urged him to leave it off the album, calling it really tacky and suspecting it sounded like a Fatboy Slim ripoff, which he admitted it kind of did. He kept it anyway because the "Love Rap" sample meant something personal to him.
Three music videos accompanied the song. Fredrik Bond directed the UK version, in which a man dances frenetically in an urban setting while Moby, playing an effects man, switches on a wind machine and a flame bar and accidentally blows up a nearby car. A second cut used audition footage of the dancers. Steve Carr directed the American version, in which Moby wears sunglasses that let him see dancers wherever he goes, with a cameo from Run-DMC.
Bodyrock runs at 107 BPM, the tempo of mid-tempo pop, dancehall and indie. In classical terms it sits in andante territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 2.24 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 561 ms. It is in F# minor, Camelot 11A, which shares its notes with A major and mixes cleanly with B minor and C# minor.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.