Recording
Brown Paper Bag
Roni Size / Reprazent
Independently chosen for2 of our lists. Here is what each of them said.
- Released
- 1997
- Label
- Talkin' Loud
- On
- Drum and Bass and The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
- ISRC
- GBF089700307
- Updated
- 2026-08-29
Analysis
7 sections, the first drop of 3 at 0:16, 5% of the way in, 48% of it spent climbing.
- Tempo
- 172.2 BPM
- the pulse reads at half this too — counted the way the genre counts it
- Key
- G minor
- estimated from the pitch content
- Dynamic range
- 4.7 dB
- compressed hard — very little between the quiet and the loud
- Length
- 5:03
- measured from the YouTube master
The record, end to end
Click the track to jump · ← → move between sections
- 0:00Aintro0
- 0:28Abuildbar 10
- 1:09Bbuildbar 25
- 2:11Bbuildbar 47
- 2:54Bpeakbar 63
- 3:15Bpeakbar 70
- 4:14Coutrobar 92
Drops at 0:16 (bar 6), 1:12 (bar 26), 2:20 (bar 51). A drop is a moment, not a stretch — marked on the track above rather than shaded across it.
0:00 · A · intro
opens the record below its own average energy · instrumental · one of 2 stretches of the same music (A)
- Lasts
- 0:28
- Energy
- 23
- Brightness
- 0
- Density
- 84
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
energy and brightness climbing without a break · instrumental · one of 2 stretches of the same music (A)
- Lasts
- 0:41
- Energy
- 47
- Brightness
- 26
- Density
- 100
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
energy and brightness climbing without a break · instrumental · one of 4 stretches of the same music (B)
- Lasts
- 1:02
- Energy
- 72
- Brightness
- 78
- Density
- 82
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
energy and brightness climbing without a break · instrumental · one of 4 stretches of the same music (B)
- Lasts
- 0:43
- Energy
- 82
- Brightness
- 63
- Density
- 78
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
sits at the top of this record's range · instrumental · one of 4 stretches of the same music (B)
- Lasts
- 0:21
- Energy
- 100
- Brightness
- 100
- Density
- 72
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
sits at the top of this record's range · instrumental · one of 4 stretches of the same music (B)
- Lasts
- 0:59
- Energy
- 99
- Brightness
- 78
- Density
- 69
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
the closing fall · instrumental
- Lasts
- 0:49
- Energy
- 0
- Brightness
- 86
- Density
- 0
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
Brightness and density are scored against this record's own sections, not against music in general — they say how its parts differ from each other, and nothing about how it compares to anything else.
- drums
- the drum kit, separated from the mix
- bass
- the bass part, separated from the mix
- vocals
- the voice, separated from the mix
- other
- everything else — synths, guitars, keys, strings
Separated into parts by a source-separation model, so each lane is the instrument it names.
- intro
- opens the record below its own average energy
- build
- energy and brightness climbing without a break
- peak
- sits at the top of this record's range
- outro
- the closing fall
Against Drum and Bass
Drum and Bass usually drops 16% in; this one gets there by 5%.
7 sections here; 9 is typical.
Drawn from the 13 records on our Drum and Bass list we have measured. The line over the energy curve above is that median.
Measured from the YouTube master on . Section labels describe how the energy of the recording moves, not its musical form — a machine can see loudness climb and jump, it cannot hear a chorus arrive. Anything we were not confident enough to state is left out rather than shown with a caveat.
Ranked No. 5 in Drum and Bass
The double bass line that carried drum and bass to the Mercury Prize and a general audience without softening a single edge of the drum programming.
Picked by The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
A double bass line, a breakbeat and a Mercury Prize. Drum and bass at its most musical without giving up an inch of its rhythmic difficulty.