Mix Tape Recommendations
I need some new riding music. I feel like I have a pretty large music collection, but it has an unfortunate percentage of novelty albums from the heyday of Napster. And while I enjoy kicking back after a long day of work with a nice Chardonnay and the soothing slow jams of Mr. T’s hit “Don’t Talk to Strangers” (from the album Mr. T’s Commandments), it isn’t the type of music that helps me zone out and ride for hours on end. I feel like I have a finite number of songs that I really enjoy listening to while on the bike, and I’m getting burned out on those. Sure, “You’ve Got the Touch” from the Transformers animated movie soundtrack may make you ride faster, but you can only listen to it so many times before you crack.
So at the risk of getting all bloggy (wut r U listning 2?! ROTFLMAO!!!!), I’m asking for a little help in compiling the most awesome -or potentially awful -- cycling playlist ever created.
Some general rules:
1. Send or post the names of a couple of your favorite songs to listen to while you ride. Email anonymously if you’re too ashamed of your music choices. I won’t judge. I own an album called “Pac Man Fever” that is nothing but songs about Atari games from the early 80’s. I listen to it sometimes. The song about Donkey Kong is catchy.
2. These should be sincere selections. Just because everything else on this website is bullshit doesn’t mean that I’m not soliciting legitimately enjoyable music to ride to.
3. You can’t include Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey. That’s just stupid. Of course it’s on the list. I don’t want everyone wasting their vote on that.
4. You also can’t include the dance mix of Christian Bale freaking out on the set of Terminator (AKA: I… I… was looking at the lights). It is also included by default.
Here’s a video of some guy named Bea Arthur singing in the Tatooine cantina during the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special:
Not having a portable listening device to soothe the ears on longer excursions, I often serenade myself with a selection of favorites from the Ramones and Misfits songbooks. When those melodies grow weary, I find further solace in the ditty “Straight To Your Heart (Like A Proton Torpedo)” by a combo called The Modern Machines.
Thanks, The Wookie. That shit is going straight to my downloadable mix tape. Like a proton torpedo.
2112 by Rush. Nothing passes the time and pushes you forward like Geddy Lee Crooning about the overthrow of a Galactic Empire using only a found acoustic guitar.
Or maybe the Smokey and the Bandit Soundtrack. You can pick and choose East/West bound and down depending on the direction your headed, so its interactive. Like Jerry Reed is singing just for you.
Ohgod. I’m in Alaska. The sun barely goes down here, and I could stay up for hours answering this burning question. As I don’t listen to the iPod on the bike, I’ll steal from my running mixes:
- The Rubberband Man, The Spinners: warming up, wishing you’d stretched instead of ingesting 24 ounces of coffee.
- Academy Fight Song, Mission of Burma: perfect salve for residual high school-related low self-esteem issues.
- New York Groove, Ace Frehley: what, you’re going to go biking without some KISS? Suit yourself.
- Wolf Like Me, TV On the Radio: super-charged energy boost — better than Goo.
- Wild Mountain Nation, Blitzen Trapper: it’ll make you want to take your jersey off and sit on someone’s shoulders.
- Convoy, CW McCall: like I have to explain.
- Waterloo, ABBA: if fellow cyclists bother you, get this stuck in their heads.
+ all the Journey that makes sense, given your mileage for the day.
Geddy: I think you’re fucking with me. But I’m going to put some Jerry Reed on the mix anyway.
Sixty: You’re amazing. I don’t know what you’re doing in Alaska, but I hope you’re having fun. Thanks for the playlist additions! And on the subject of KISS, my mom took my brother out of school and to a KISS show at the Cow Palace in San Francisco when he was SEVEN YEARS OLD.
Someone deserves an amazing mothers day card tomorrow.
I think it depends on the scenery. On my recent Olympia-or-bust ride-a-thon I listened to a lot of folk music (specifically henry thomas) because I was in the country and felt like I was really “getting it”. For closer-in, faster rides I listen to The Clipse. The best thing I have ever heard on a ride was Erin Playman singing a laotian song about meditation to me as we cruised to Multnomah Falls. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev7Yz5PmwaE
Dawn: That’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen (or heard). I especially like it when the mood changes from happpy-go-lucky to intense and threatening… “Follow Luang Por’s instruction… ONLY”.
Holy shit. That was amazing, Dawn. “Strong desire make it fail”
Qualifying races for Helltrack…”Thunder in Your Heart” – John Franham
Foxcx: Nice. I actually knew the words to that song before I’d ever heard it, just because so many people I knew would reference it while riding. So it was tuneless in my head. Like a poem. A really bad poem.
“Eat your heart out, Hulk Hogan!”
i have found that i will start humming most songs from Witchfinder General’s “DEATH PENALTY” whenever i start riding fast. if i listened to music while i rode my bike, i would put that and Slayer’s “REIGN IN BLOOD” on my mixtape
I ahve an imaginary ipod and imaginary playlists titled “Get Hot Rookie” that include the following:
Melt-Banana, “Shield for Your Eyes…”
The Knife’s “Neverland”, “We Share Our Mother’s Health” and “You Make Me Like Charity”
Show Me the Pink, especially “The Anthem” (goes with touring really well for some reason)
“Libel”, a short song by Tilt, if youre feeling like some punk rock
“Teri Yakimoto” by Guttermouth, ditto
Ladytron gets hella stuck in my head. Try “International Dateline”, “True Mathematics”, and “Playgirl”..
“Feel the Vibration” from Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch..
and Technotronic’s “Pump Up the Jam”, of course.
There’s more (oh, is there more) but that’s all that my capacity to admit liking can handle now
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