Great music for running?

February 1, 2010 2:31 PM

Great music for running?

Ok, I've been trying to up my jogging to running, and from a occasional thing, to a regular habit. I also just got a iPod Touch, so I'm set for listening to podcasts and audiobooks at the gym, but when I run outside I'd rather dedicate my old iPod Shuffle to running music. I found these two threads, that are somewhat helpful:


Whats your favorite music to exercise to?

Music for jogging

However they are both at least five years old, and I tend to get bored with music after I've heard it too many times, so many of those tunes might not work for me.

I'd like to hear suggestions for upbeat music with a feeling of pushing forward that will help me keep motivated. Current favorites:

Sigur Rós – Gobbledigook (This is my absolute favorite running song)
Los Campesinos! (especially My Year In Lists)
Throw Me the Statue - Lolita
Michael Franti & Spearhead - Say Hey
Harlem Shakes - Strictly Game

Busdriver
Vampire Weekend
Bloc Party
TV on the Radio
Fergie (embarrassingly enough)

posted by dawnoftheread to Health & Fitness (43 answers total)

Response by poster: Thanks in advance!
posted by dawnoftheread at 2:32 PM on February 1, 2010

A more general strategy: Figure out how fast you want to run/jog, then find a song that matches that pace (footfall = beat) well, then find other music with the same bpm.
posted by Jacqueline at 2:39 PM on February 1, 2010

I run regularly to a dance album - Henrik Schwarz, Live. God it's great. Uses lots of samples, doesn't sound stupid and fake.
posted by smoke at 2:40 PM on February 1, 2010

There are podcasts you can download with specific beats-per-minute settings. I like Podrunner.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:41 PM on February 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Here's a more recent workout/running music post.
posted by mynameisluka at 2:46 PM on February 1, 2010

I would consider the following albums/artists are boppy and runnable:

Of Montreal: Sunlandic Twins
Mates of State: Re-Arrange Us
If you like Vampire Weekend, how about Fleet Foxes or French Kicks: Swimming
The Shins: Chutes Too Narrow
Cake
Spoon

Also, there's a new Vampire Weekend out. I have it here, but haven't listened to it yet. And I think there's a new Cake album out.
posted by fyrebelley at 2:47 PM on February 1, 2010

Here is a recent thread you missed.
posted by ludwig_van at 2:48 PM on February 1, 2010

Try some electro pop: Air France, Hot Chip, The Tough Alliance, Delorean.
posted by the foreground at 2:50 PM on February 1, 2010

Silent Shout by The Knife
posted by fire&wings at 2:51 PM on February 1, 2010

For some reason I listen to slower stuff when I run. I think I tend to run a bit too fast, so maybe the slower stuff controls my speed a bit? Josh Ritter's "The Animal Years" and Neko Case's "Fox Confessor Brings the Flood" were two favourites. I know Josh is a runner, so I wonder if there's something to that?

Also, The Wrens' "Meadowlands" - mostly for when "This Boy is Exhausted" comes on.
posted by backwards guitar at 2:55 PM on February 1, 2010

A few songs I like to run/work out/ work in general to (upbeat, faster paced, makes me want to keep going)

Feel It In My Bones (feat. Tegan & Sara) - Tiesto
Gimme Sympathy - Metric
Baby Baby Baby - Make The Girl Dance
11th Dimension - Julian Casablancas
Lisztomania - Phoenix
posted by lizbunny at 2:56 PM on February 1, 2010

LCD Soundsystem put out a 45:33 minute song for Nike, specifically written for running. I really like it. Its beat supposedly slows you down and speeds you up based on what your heart rate should be, and gives you both warm-up music and cool-down music.
posted by functionequalsform at 2:58 PM on February 1, 2010 [4 favorites]

Talking Heads and Blondie!
posted by tim_in_oz at 3:00 PM on February 1, 2010

Gossip!
posted by scody at 3:00 PM on February 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

And to take Jacqueline's tip one step (yeah, pun intended) further, select songs that clock in at half the speed you want to run. For example, if you want to run 7 minute miles, pick 3:30 songs. Then every two songs you know you should be hitting a mile. If you have landmarks you'll know whether to pick up the pace or if you can slow it up a bit.

I did this on a trail system where distance was well marked. Then when I got off into weirdness (running in areas I didn't know) I still had a decent indicator of speed.

Doing this will somewhat also dictate your song list. Sort by time in iTunes and see what songs fit your half mile time and are decent for running. YMMV.
posted by cjorgensen at 3:02 PM on February 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

My running playlist is completely different from anything else I listen to, and can best be described as immature. I started with Keira Knigtley's playlist and expanded from there. I look for songs that make me want to move, with words I can stand to hear more than once. Recent additions include some of the livelier songs from Slum Dog Millionaire and a heck of a lot of songs from The Kinks.
posted by bearwife at 3:18 PM on February 1, 2010

My page of songs I've compiled which exactly match my running beat: Treadmill Tunes (possibly too old and/or eclectic for you). I do ten-minute miles; I should know my tempo, but I've forgotten. One of those threads linked to above has a site where you can enter your tempo and get matches, which is very helpful.
posted by Rash at 3:22 PM on February 1, 2010

I find mashups are good for this sort of thing. They're often loud and dance oriented and have a steady sort of beat. This is what is on my gym mix right now.

Shopping For Explosives - Coconut Monkeyrocket [best song ever, listen here]
Miracle Drug - A.C. Newman
Carnival Kids - The Futureheads
The Power Is On - The Go! Team
Track 06 [gypsy] [something random from a Best of Fono Records promo CD]
Wild Rock Music - Steppenwolf Apollo440 Ike & Tina Turner Madonna
You Gonna be my love machine? - Jet vs Girls Aloud
I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor - Arctic Monkeys
Whipsta - Devo & 50 Cent
Video Killed The Radio Star - Offspring
Love Machine - Arctic Monkeys
Smash Your Head - Girl Talk
We Will Ska You Queen & Bad Manners
Beastie Ketchup - Beastie Boys & The Ketchup Song
Beastie Bop - Beastie Boys & The Ramones
Take You To The Clouds Above - THE MASHUP KIDS
U Know Y London Burns - Mogwai & The Clash
01 Shrinking Moon For You - Wooden Shjips
Test Tube Baby/Shoot 'Em Down - Morphine
SuperStar Kz - Freestylo
posted by jessamyn at 3:28 PM on February 1, 2010

This is part 1 of a running music thing Aesop Rock did...I think you may have to purchase the song to get the entire version or look around for it online.
posted by vito90 at 3:31 PM on February 1, 2010

I believe that Girl Talk "Feed The Animals" is the single best album for running.

Apparently the album was created as one long piece of music and then subsequently broken into individual songs, which I find helpful for keeping my energy constant during my run. Plus it is composed almost entirely of samples taken from other artists' songs, so you can have fun trying to recognize the samples.
posted by sharkfu at 3:40 PM on February 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

My favourite running track is Je Veux Te Voir by Yelle (somewhat NSFW). It's an electro-pop-techno kind of thing, and the lyrics are NSFW but only if you speak French. It's really catchy and I find it has just the right rhythm for running.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:40 PM on February 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

Kraftwerk !

And more generally: Spotify is absolutely awesome for creating mixes to work out to (if you live in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France or Spain - sorry, if not).
posted by RabbitRun at 3:41 PM on February 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

I've found all the playlists that Nike's Dr. Powersong puts together are pretty solid. Here's the slightly-more-useful iTunes link to those playlists.

These Nike playlists I mention are separate from the long mixes (like the 40-min long LCD Soundsystem one) - I prefer it broken up into songs rather than a continual mix.

I'm sort of a music snob in normal life, but pop/hip hop singles find their way into my running playlists far more than I'd like to admit. I made a nice list made up primarily of choices from the top 25 tracks of 2009 (Black Eyed Peas, Beyonce etc) simply because many of them have the nice combo of the right BPM plus continuous and steady drums/rhythm. Look at iTunes top track downloads, then preview and see what feels like the right BPM. Trashy music just keeps me going way better than critically acclaimed music.

Here are some of my favorite playlists/albums:

-Herbert / Scale
-Daft Punk - I have the greatest hits, but I imagine most of their stuff would work
-Timbaland / Shock Value 2
-Hold Steady / Boys and Girls In America
-Of Montreal / Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer
-From the Nike Playlists - the one made up entirely of tracks produced by Timbaland
-Jay Z / The Black Album
-Lady Gaga / The Fame
-From the Nike Playlists - The Golden Hour
-From the Nike Playlists - Marathon Playlists - This one is GOLD. I finished my last race with this playlist.
-LCD Sound System - his s/t album, and Sound of Silver
-From the Nike Playlists - It's My Block
posted by soleiluna at 4:02 PM on February 1, 2010

Japandroids - Wet Hair
posted by Felicity Rilke at 4:42 PM on February 1, 2010

Lots of vintage U2 has an excellent drum beat (yay Larry Mullen); I discovered one night jogging offhand that "Pride" has the best "we can do it" marching beat around.

The soundtrack to Run Lola Run was my running soundtrack back when I was 18, but I haven't listened to it in a long time, dunno if it still holds up...
posted by ifjuly at 5:19 PM on February 1, 2010

And a hearty second yes to The Go! Team (right down to that song even, my favorite one) and Kraftwerk's Tour de France soundtrack.
posted by ifjuly at 5:20 PM on February 1, 2010

Oh, and maybe Metal Urbain. "Panik" always pumps me up.
posted by ifjuly at 5:20 PM on February 1, 2010

Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up"
posted by sallybrown at 5:28 PM on February 1, 2010

For pushing forward:

OK Go- Get Over It
posted by charmedimsure at 6:20 PM on February 1, 2010

Re: Vampire Weekend--Contra isn't as ready for running as some of their debut, but the tracks Cousins, White Sky, & Giving Up the Gun work for me.

Also, the Shiny Toy Guns cover of Major Tom from the Lincoln car commercials is one I've found that's great to listen to while starting a run.

I just discovered the album Astro Coast by a new band called Surfer Blood and it's lots of surf rock-influence meets 90s alternative. Filled with great hooks and gets me pumped.

The new Motion City Soundtrack album is pretty upbeat but I haven't tried it out while running yet.

Oh. And pretty much everything Lady GaGa.
posted by 1901gunner at 6:20 PM on February 1, 2010

It was a punchline in a web comic, but I just love Yakety Sax on a running mix. It puts me in a hilarious mood and makes me want to run in fast forward.
posted by advicepig at 6:42 PM on February 1, 2010

Above mentioned comic.

http://basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2010/1/27/how-to-use-your-friends-hobbies-to-your-advantage.html
posted by advicepig at 6:44 PM on February 1, 2010

Nthing all LCD Soundsystem for these purposes.
posted by Beardman at 6:49 PM on February 1, 2010

Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up"

The Wire approved!
posted by Beardman at 6:53 PM on February 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

It's not fast, it's not loud, it doesn't rock, but I find Iron and Wine to be so goddamn intense that I can't help but run in a more focused manner.
posted by notsnot at 7:13 PM on February 1, 2010

Anything from Infected Mushroom is fantastic -- the perfect BPM for running. I'll also second A.C. Newman.
posted by jessemellon at 9:26 PM on February 1, 2010

GDMFSOB - UNKLE with Roots Manuva
Payback - James Brown
Run - Cog
The takeoff - Good Buddha and the Resin Dogs
Long strong diamond - Baggsmen (pros: awesome clip, cons: can't see clip while running; BPM may be high enough to kill you)
Dusted - Leftfield
posted by fonetik at 1:53 AM on February 2, 2010

Kanye West - Stronger
posted by chalbe at 7:39 AM on February 2, 2010

Response by poster: Thanks everyone...this is terrific!
posted by dawnoftheread at 8:51 AM on February 2, 2010

Other Yelle song that is really good : Jogging

There's also La Rock 01 by Vitalic and a friend of mine listens to this (caramelldansen) for hours on end.

Personal favourites are by Mylo: In my Arms (tocadisco remix) and Muscle Car
posted by litleozy at 2:03 PM on February 2, 2010

Since posting up-thread I've gone back and got scientific on this. The songs that had the beat that perfectly suited my cadence were Blondie's Maria and Gang of Four's Damaged Goods. So I went and got me an application - BPMer - that purportedly does BPM analysis. You run it through your iTunes directory and it writes the BPM value to the metadata for each track. Then go to 'view' and 'view options' and tick the check-box for BPM. Voila, by clicking on the BPM column you can sort your iTunes library by beats per minute, and then assemble a playlist with your desired rhythm.

YMMV, but I found that songs with a BMP value in the range of about 158-163 were perfect. The aforementioned Blondie song was bang on 160.

Some caveats. The software isn't perfect. Some songs come up with BPM values that are frankly preposterous. But for a quick and dirty approximation, it's not bad. Second thing is that the freeware version will only analyze songs with titles that start with letters from A to J. You have to pay for the full version that will do the lot. If you're desperate to know the BPMs of a particular song you can always temporarily rename it by inserting a letter in the range a-j as the first character and run BPMer again.
posted by tim_in_oz at 2:41 PM on February 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

Based on your interests, you might like Yeasayer's new album "Odd Blood". Which, uhh, will be released on Feb 9th. Good representative song to check out: ONE.
posted by acidic at 4:52 PM on February 2, 2010

Hands down:

Pendulum - In Silico

Mix of electronica and rock, upbeat chords, upbeat tempos, and hellishly fun. Seriously, I'm amazed more electronic music isn't on this list. For the downbeat, remove my mind from my body album, I usually go with Shpongle or Younger Brother.
posted by talldean at 12:33 PM on February 6, 2010