Songs Like No Surprises by Radiohead
By Dan Cohen · Published 2026-09-05
No Surprises reads intensity 26/100, dynamic range 6/10, and — the number that surprises people — 104 BPM, with smooth texture, soft vocals and no sudden changes. Mood tags: calm and contemplative.
104 BPM and still the calmest thing on the record
A hundred and four beats per minute is a brisk walking pace. Nobody experiences No Surprises as brisk. This is the clearest example in our catalogue of why we do not rank calm by tempo: what makes a recording feel still is the flat dynamic range, the absence of abrupt shifts, and a voice that never pushes. Tempo is close to irrelevant once those three are settled.
Eight in the same band, all sharing both moods
- Awake — Tycho. Intensity 26, dynamic range 5, 80 BPM. Identical intensity, instrumental.
- Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9 No. 2 — Chopin. Intensity 25, dynamic range 5, 60 BPM.
- Chamber of Reflection — Mac DeMarco. Intensity 27, dynamic range 5, 70 BPM.
- re:member — Ólafur Arnalds. Intensity 27, dynamic range 4 — the flattest here.
- Dayvan Cowboy — Boards of Canada. Intensity 25, dynamic range 5, 70 BPM.
- Royals — Lorde. Intensity 25, dynamic range 4, 85 BPM.
- Self Care — Mac Miller. Intensity 27, dynamic range 6, 85 BPM.
- Cranes in the Sky — Solange. Intensity 28, dynamic range 5, 80 BPM — the most intense on this list, and still two points below the seed’s own album average would suggest.
No Surprises appears on Radiohead’s 1997 album OK Computer. The claim that tempo is a weak predictor of perceived calm is our interpretation of our own measurements, presented as such. Figures are our own measurements, read from the public API at build time. The genre and era spread is a consequence of measuring sound rather than style — it is not a claim that these artists resemble each other in any other way. No lyrics are reproduced.