80’s NEW WAVE

What came first - the New Wave or the need to run away from something? Because let me tell you, this playlist is about escape. Not the triumphant, marathon-finish-line kind. The desperate, lace-up-your-Nikes-at-midnight-because-sitting-still-hurts-more kind.

It opens with "How Soon Is Now?" and immediately you're in trouble. That tremolo guitar effect - Johnny Marr running it through a Fender Twin Reverb with a harmonizer, obviously - sounds like your heartbeat when someone doesn't call back. Morrissey singing about not having a chance at 120 BPM should be ridiculous for running music, but here's the thing: sometimes you run to feel worse before you feel better. That's the first mile. That's The Smiths.

Then track two hits and everything shifts. "Hybrid Moments" - the Misfits doing their horror punk thing, but this is the 1985 Reel Platinum version where Glenn Danzig sounds almost romantic before he went full devil-lock psychobilly. It's 1:42 of pure adrenaline, and suddenly you're not running from sadness, you're running toward something darker and more exciting. The sequencing here is everything: melancholy to menace in under four minutes.

Top 5 Things This Playlist Taught Me About Running Away vs. Running Toward:

1. The Smiths to Misfits transition (tracks 1-2) = the exact moment you stop wallowing and start moving. Jangle pop to horror punk in 90 seconds is the sonic equivalent of deciding to actually leave the apartment.

2. "Rock the Casbah" at track three = false confidence. The Clash making you think you've got this figured out, right before "Mirror in the Bathroom" reminds you that no, you're still obsessing over the same stuff, just with ska horns now.

3. The Cure's "Just Like Heaven" at the midpoint (track 5) = the dangerous romantic reprieve. Robert Smith's production makes every snare hit feel like hope. This is where you convince yourself maybe it wasn't all bad. This is where you make bad decisions at mile 2.

4. "Ghost Town" by The Specials (track 8) = the emotional bottom. That haunting echo, the minor-key ska, Jerry Dammers producing it like a soundtrack to urban decay. You're past the halfway point, your legs hurt, and the playlist just reminded you why you're out here alone.

5. Nirvana's "Love Buzz" closing it out = you didn't escape anything, you just moved through it. Sub Pop's raw production on this Shocking Blue cover, recorded at Reciprocal in Seattle before Nevermind changed everything. You end where grunge begins, which is basically where punk realized it had feelings.

The middle stretch - tracks 6 through 10 - is where this playlist gets interesting. INXS, Modern English, The Specials, The Descendants, Violent Femmes. It's all over the place genre-wise, and that's the point. New Wave doesn't mean consistency, it means everything breaking apart at once. Post-punk, ska, jangle pop, hardcore - throw it all in because nothing makes sense anyway. "I Melt with You" into "Ghost Town" into "Silly Girl" is three completely different visions of what 1980s alternative music could sound like, and somehow it works for running because your brain is oxygen-deprived and just accepting whatever comes next.

The final act - tracks 11 through 15 - gets west coast. Operation Ivy, Concrete Blonde, X, Pixies, Nirvana. Barry would argue with me about whether this is still "New Wave" or if we've crossed into early alternative and grunge territory, and honestly, he'd be right, but who cares? "Wave of Mutilation - UK Surf" at track 14 is the Pixies doing their loud-quiet-loud thing, and it sounds like what happens at mile 4 when you're not sure if you're going to finish or just walk home.

Here's what Dick told me once: every good playlist has to break. Not fall apart - break through. That moment where it stops being background music and becomes the thing you're actually experiencing. For this one, it's track 11, "Sound System" by Operation Ivy. Lookout! Records put this out in 1989, two-minute ska-punk bursts recorded live to two-track with no overdubs. Jesse Michaels screaming over horn stabs, and you can hear every kid in that Berkeley scene losing their minds. It hits 32 minutes in, when you're tired enough to stop overthinking and just feel it.