Over the last few weeks, I've hit a bit of a creative slump with regards to my running. In the absence of parkrun and the social aspect therein, I've been doing the same routes and getting bored of it. I decided to shake things up a bit and ask my friends on social media to choose for me. A soft launch on Twitter using a carefully selected series of polls (to prevent people telling me to run a marathon in 20 minutes) kicked things off.
Manipulating polls to get the results I wanted
The week after, I tried Instagram, giving followers who cared enough to interact with my stories the choice of a fast and flat run, or hills (hills hills). Unsurprisingly they picked the hills, with a follow-up question seeing 2/3rds choose hill repeats over one big hill in a poorly worded question. Due to wanting a beer on a Saturday night, I elected to do these the morning after watching the film/war-crime Cats, but on the bright side after three 2km reps up a steep hill my hangover was gone! With a nice 2k to get there warming me up (and down afterwards), and the hill being a kilometre high, it was a great route to discover for the future.
So, with a bit of success from these, I opened things up to user submissions. Knowing that they'd probably send me on a route that includes Land's End, John O'Groats, Mordor, Atlantis and Venus, I kept things simple and asked for music submissions. The rules included one track per person, and outlawed any repeats. I also pledged to listen in the order of submission to avoid any suggestions I was adjusting the playlist to make it easier on me. I also privately promised to run for the entire length of the playlist - had I admitted this, I could pinpoint exactly who would submit the longest song they could find just for a laugh (and one of them couched their suggestion with "the longest version of this song you can find", proving me right).
I was nervous about it, especially knowing what the second song was, and only familiar with about a quarter of the songs submitted. How would they fare as running songs? How would they hold up as songs at all? How far would I have to run? Where is the love? Do they know it's Christmas? D'ya know what I mean?
1. MØL - Bruma (Patrick)
Straight in with something new, a shoegazey metal band from Denmark! If the two coffees to start the day hadn't woken me up already, this definitely would have done. I really liked it, it reminded me of Arch Enemy and I'm going to check out more of their work later this week.
Song: 8/10
Suitability as a running soundtrack: 10/10
2. Crazy Frog - Axel F (Conor)
And the first of the troll submissions. (To be fair, with the amount of shots I've taken at Swindon Town on Twitter, I deserved it.) This started as a "grit your teeth and pray for it to end" song but the steady beat and 80s synths really helped me click into my pace - it's just a shame about the ringtone championing amphibian singing all over it!
Song: 3/10
Running: 8/10 (I'll add the original to my regular running playlists)
3. Bastille - Joy (Dana)
Any song after the preceding one would be a blessing, but this just clicked with me. Maybe it was seeing the sun breaking through the clouds above the piers, maybe it was just the general pleasantness of the song, but it definitely uplifted my spirits ahead of what could turn out to be a gruelling run.
Song: 8/10
Running: 8/10
4. Bill Withers - Lovely Day (Kerry)
And another nice song. A steady beat, a song that moves along at a fair clip, it was a surprise that I found it so easy to run to but I'm pleased it was added. I don't know that it would've clicked quite as much if it had been chucking it down but it really was a lovely day for running!
Song: 10/10
Running: 7/10
5. Vidiots - Dog Rap (Ryan)
I was nervous about this song to start with. I had absolutely no idea what to expect and was slightly scared of what I would have to listen to. Luckily, within about 10 seconds I realised it was exactly the sort of rap parody you'd see on SNL or an episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and I had a great time with it! I did have trouble keeping my cadence to it, unfortunately.
Song: 7/10
Running: 6/10
6. Turbowolf - Domino (CJ)
I won't lie, I was half hoping that this would be a metal cover of a Jessie J song. It wasn't, but that wasn't much of a detriment - just three minutes of full on rock 'n' roll, and another band I'll check out more of later!
Song: 9/10
Running: 8/10
7. Rammstein - Deutschland (Sophie)
Finally, a familiar song! I've run to this track before, and it's not the only one of theirs that I've run to, so I could relax into the run a bit easier. I really should remember that my mask blocks infection but not my voice, as I think I scared other runners by singing along.
Song: 10/10
Running: 9/10
8. Das Sound Machine - World Championship Finale (Amie)
And from a German band to a faux-German group, performing a mash-up of Fall Out Boy and DJ Khaled. While I didn't enjoy the Pitch Perfect movies as much as people expected, this was a clever combination of two songs I was vaguely familiar with, didn't overstay its welcome, and even raised a smile!
Song: 7/10
Running: 5/10
9. Brothers Osborne - It Ain't My Fault (Dad)
Again, more expectations of pop song covers dashed, but even though this isn't a countrified Zara Larsson song it still rocked! A good steady beat, it reminded me of a train but that may have been because I was running next to a railway line! Another pleasant discovery. I realised at this point that this was also probably the most different male vocalists I'd listened to in succession in years.
Song: 9/10
Running: 7/10
10. HUNGER - Light It Up (Elise)
Knowing the musical overlap I have with Elise, I was surprised to hear a(nother) male vocalist on this track. It was great despite that, the song reminded me of a third act heroic run in a teen movie, which really boosted my serotonin.
Song: 8/10
Running: 8/10
11. Prince - When Doves Cry (Julia)
The first of three submissions from the same person, and reluctantly the only one I could keep. It's to my shame that I forget how good a musician Prince was, and this was a welcome reprise. It soundtracked the portion of my run along the western arm of Brighton Marina, and reminded me of that beautiful moment when two people called Milhouse finally meet.
Song: 10/10
Running: 9/10
12. BLACKPINK - BOOMBAYAH (Laura)
I'm glad I stuck to my guns regarding not using shuffle, as it lead to this colourful trend - mix black and pink and you get purple, the previous artist's signature colour! Another familiar song, another relaxing segment of the run, by this point along the foot of the cliffs towards Saltdean. By now I was confident of being able to run to pretty much any song - alternating between music and podcasts over the last few years had broken me out of old habits of needing fast paced songs to keep me going. I could just settle in and enjoy the mix of English and Korean!
Song: 9/10
Running: 9/10
13. P!nk - Raise Your Glass (Emily)
It is a fault of my own that I associate too many songs with the TV show Glee. I noticed it working my way through Van Halen's discography the other week; I noticed it here as well. I mostly put that out of my mind after the first verse, focusing on P!nk's snarky asides that didn't make it into the sanitised, TV friendly version. It also made me realise that I really should listen to her more!
Song: 8/10
Running: 8/10
14. Stan Getz, Joao Gilberto - The Girl From Ipanema (Jess)
This was the first song that genuinely threw me off my pace. I stumbled and said (probably too loudly, I'm sure that people overheard) "what the fuck is this?!" when the French jazz came on. Over five minutes long, I felt myself slowing, and willing it to end. My colleague's attempt to throw me off worked - I'm just glad she didn't choose Ed Sheeran!
Song: 2/10
Running: 0/10
15. A Flock Of Seagulls - I Ran (So Far Away) (Charley)
Song: 9/10
Running: 8/10
16. The Walkmen - The Rat (Garry)
By this point I had hit the turn around point and was heading back towards town, along the undulating clifftop. It was also the penultimate song that I had no idea about, and another surprise! Chock full of driving drums, it reminded me (to no detriment) of The Bravery's An Honest Mistake, and I was pleased to find out later that the two songs were released within six months of each other! Another song that'll find its way onto my regular running playlists in the future.
Song: 8/10
Running: 10/10
17. Chemical Brothers - Galvanize (Eveline)
I could've sworn when I was listening to this song that it had been used on an advert, or TV show, perhaps as part of an exercise montage - but Wikipedia is remaining mute on the subject. Regardless, it made me feel like I was in one, so this is going on the playlist from now on. You might say it...galvanised...me into running faster!
Song: 8/10
Running: 10/10
18. Russ Abbot - Atmosphere (James)
The final song on this list that I knew nothing about - and within seconds I was convinced it was a hastily written song to cash in on the popularity of Agadoo. According to Google this was written by Joy Division, but I'm certain that's incorrect. Spotify credits the singer, and it's really not good. I'm just glad it had some semblance of pace to it so it didn't drag!
Song: 1/10
Running: 1/10
19. Britney Spears - Toxic (Adam)
About ten years ago the branch of German budget supermarket Aldi in Canterbury closed down, and the cramped site was taken over by upmarket supermarket Waitrose. The sudden increase in quality is a perfect metaphor for the vast uptick in quality between the last song and this. The Grammy award winning track is the musical equivalent of doping - listening to it makes you run faster, lighter, easier and happier.
Song: 10/10
Running: 11/10
20. Faithless - Insomnia (Laura)
This was a song I was convinced I knew, but two-thirds of the way into the song it still wasn't ringing any bells...until the bells kicked in and I recognised the bit played on Invicta FM on the car rides to school all those years ago. Another great song to run to, soundtracking my run along Marine Parade back to the pier.
Song: 9/10
Running: 8/10
21. Garbage - Temptation Waits (Charlie)
The opening track on the first proper album I ever owned, and the third track on the "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" original soundtrack album...this is very possibly one of my most listened to songs, ever. A slow burner, it explodes on the listener partway through - and I guess knowing I only had ten minutes left of my run helped boost my motivation too!
Song: 8/10
Running: 8/10
22. Focus - Hocus Pocus (live at the Rainbow) (Jack)
This was submitted with the caveat of "hopefully a 15 minute live version". The longest one I could find was "only" eight and a half minutes, but the yodelling and guitars sped me to a fast finish on Hove Lawns. I really need to give the studio version another listen!
Song: 8/10
Running: 9/10
Had I just been listening to podcasts, I probably would've called it a day at 10 or 12k. I tucked another 6k under my belt (two more pints in my beer total), covered a more interesting route, and good lord are my legs feeling it now!
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