A minor · Camelot 8A · 129 BPM
Don't Stop the Dance
by Bryan Ferry
- 129
- BPM
- A minor
- Key
- 8A
- Camelot
- 72
- Danceability
- 1
- Acousticness
Bryan Ferry had spent more than a decade building a double career by the time he recorded "Don't Stop the Dance." As the frontman and main songwriter of Roxy Music, a band he assembled in London in 1970, he had achieved international success with albums like their 1972 debut and For Your Pleasure in 1973. Alongside that, he ran a parallel solo career that began with These Foolish Things in 1973, an album of cover versions that popularized the idea of a contemporary musician recording standards.
"Don't Stop the Dance" appeared on Boys and Girls, Ferry's sixth solo studio album, released in 1985. He wrote and produced the track with Rhett Davies, and it came out as the album's second single. The song reached the top 20 of Billboard's Album Rock play list and climbed to number 26 on the Adult Contemporary chart.
A music video directed by John Scarlett Davis accompanied the single. It opened with shots of theater lights before cutting to the French model Laurence Treil dancing, intercut with Ferry's face as he sang and old film footage of beachgoers, chorus girls, ballet dancers and tap dancers. Treil appeared to play saxophone during David Sanborn's solo. Stylization came from the fashion photographer Stevie Hughes. In 2013, a wave of new remixes arrived on three limited edition 12" vinyl records and as downloads, with contributions from Todd Terje, Psychemagik, Idjut Boys and several other DJs.
Don't Stop the Dance runs at 129 BPM, the tempo of house, disco and most club dance music. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.86 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 465 ms. It is in A minor, Camelot 8A, which shares its notes with C major and mixes cleanly with D minor and E minor.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.