Why 4/4 house sits at roughly 120 to 128 beats per minute.
People tapping a finger with no instruction settle near 2 beats per second, which is 120 a minute. That is close to a brisk walking cadence. Studies of "groove", the urge to move to music, find it peaks in about the same range, so house tempo fits the body's default rhythm.
The second ingredient is syncopation, notes that land off the beat. Research on groove shows an inverted U. Too little syncopation sounds stiff, too much loses the beat, and a medium amount draws people in most. The off-beat hi-hat over a steady kick is a textbook medium dose.
That combination, a predictable pulse with controlled surprise on top, is probably why a 4/4 floor works for hours without wearing out the listener