Get the latest gossip

"I didn't know you could change the tempo in Pro Tools - so I just made all my songs at 120bpm": Super-producer Benny Blanco reveals the surprising reason why most of his early hits are at the same tempo

Kesha's Tik Tok, Katy Perry's Teenage Dream and Taio Cruz's Dynamite are all at 120bpm

Benny Blanco is one of the 21st century's most successful producers and songwriters, having sat behind the boards for chart-topping hits from Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran, Britney Spears and Lana Del Rey, among others. As it turns out, though, the Virginia-born producer spent much of the early part of his career blissfully unaware of some rather fundamental functionality in his music-making software of choice - and astonishingly, it was precisely this lack of know-how that ended up shaping the sound of several internationally successful hits. Taking a glance at some early selections from Blanco's discography, we can see that several hugely successful tracks the producer worked on towards the end of the '00s - Kesha's Tik Tok, Katy Perry's Teenage Dream and Taio Cruz's Dynamite - are all at 120bpm.

Get the Android app