BAD NEWS

I've spent most of my life pretending to be familiar with bands I'd never actually heard. You know the move—someone mentions a group, you nod knowingly, maybe say "oh yeah, great stuff," then immediately go home and frantically search for their most popular track. This playlist is built from five bands I absolutely did that with before finally listening properly: Pink Fuzz, Twen, Screen Frogs, Frankie and the Witch Fingers, and Psychedelic Porn Crumpets. The last one especially—you can't drop that name in conversation without committing to the bit.

The thing about running is it forces you to actually listen. You can't fake your way through three miles pretending a song is good when it's actively making your stride fall apart. So I went deep on these bands, pulled tracks that actually work when your heart rate is spiking and your brain is looking for reasons to quit, and built something that mirrors the psychology of a run: the opening lie that this will be easy, the middle section where everything gets complicated, and the final stretch where you're just trying to survive with dignity intact.

Pink Fuzz, Twen, and J'cuuzi open with maximum fuzz and forward momentum, the sonic equivalent of the first mile when you're still convinced you're an athlete. Then Screen Frogs and The Thing bring that garage rock rawness, guitars that sound like they were recorded in a borrowed practice space with blown speakers. It's the aesthetic of not caring, which is exactly the energy you need when you start realizing your legs are already tired.

The Crooked Rugs slow everything to desert sprawl across two tracks, all space and highway dawn. This is the psychological middle, where the run stops being about fitness and starts being about whether you're the kind of person who quits things. Spiral Drive kicks the tempo back with "Illusion," refusing to let you settle into existential wallowing.

Then "Electricide" hits at track nine. Frankie and the Witch Fingers understand the wall isn't physical—it's the moment your brain starts bargaining. This six-minute krautrock hypnosis doesn't offer inspiration, just motorik repetition that becomes its own form of transcendence. You're not running toward anything anymore, you're just locked in because stopping requires a decision and you're out of decision-making energy.

Psychedelic Porn Crumpets follow with "Ergophobia"—literally, fear of effort. By track ten, that's the diagnosis. Atlas Wynd and J'cuuzi bring helplessness and bad toys, everything hurts, you're still moving. Wand melts whatever's left of your brain, and The Crooked Rugs close with "Melancholy Mind," which is exactly where you'll be. But you made it. The bands were real. The run is done. That counts.