CRAMPS, HIVES & OTHER AILMENTS - Running music.

What came first, the side stitch or the psychic pain you're trying to run away from? Because let me tell you, this playlist isn't helping with either one—it's just making both of them louder, faster, more undeniable.

Twenty tracks of garage punk, egg punk, and psychedelic noise that sound like The Cramps and The Hives had a kid who grew up on bad speed and worse decisions. This is running music for people who don't actually like running but can't sit still with their thoughts for one more second. The Lakefront Trail at 7am, wind coming off the lake, and your legs are moving but you're not getting anywhere. You know that feeling?

Here's what this playlist understands: garage punk isn't about technical precision or lyrical poetry—it's about the three-minute explosion that keeps you from thinking about why you're alone again. Spiritual Cramp, Teen Mortgage, The Hives—these bands all know the same secret. Fidelity doesn't matter when you're moving this fast. Just volume, tempo, and the blessed stupidity of not stopping.

Top 5 Reasons This Playlist Proves You Can't Outrun Your Problems (But You'll Try Anyway):

1. Every single track clocks in under four minutes—just like every relationship you've had, it's over before you figure out what went wrong.

2. The sequencing doesn't give you time to think between songs. "Dog In A Cage" to "Rigor Mortis Radio" to "Falling Down"—it's three punches in a row, which is exactly what your cardio system didn't ask for.

3. Egg punk is a genre that shouldn't exist but does anyway, much like your running habit. Teen Mortgage makes music that sounds like it was recorded in a storage unit, which is somehow perfect for mile two when you're questioning all your life choices.

4. The Hives appear here like they're doing you a favor—which they are. "Step Out Of The Way" and "1000 Answers" are perfectly engineered Swedish garage rock from a band that never made a bad record, and if Barry tries to argue with me about this, I'll make him listen to Tyrannosaurus Hives front to back until he admits I'm right.

5. Space rock and krautrock shouldn't work for running, but "Space Jam" and the psychedelic detours prove that sometimes disorientation is the point. You're not supposed to know where you are—that's why you left your apartment.

The first half is pure garage velocity. "Bogus Operandi," "Earth To Mike," "Rattlesnakes In The City"—these are three-chord anthems made by people who probably recorded everything in a weekend because rent was due on Monday. Dick would appreciate the lo-fi aesthetic here, the way you can almost hear the room they tracked in. I just appreciate that it makes mile three slightly less unbearable.

Then "Goon" hits and you realize this playlist has a nasty habit of not letting up. No power ballads, no acoustic interludes, no moment to catch your breath. Just "Away," "Two Kinds Of Trouble," and the realization that whoever put this together understands that stopping is worse than continuing.

"Countdown To Shutdown" at track thirteen is the wall breaker moment—you're halfway through your run and halfway through the playlist and you're starting to understand that this isn't about fitness, it's about forward motion as a coping mechanism. The tempo doesn't change, your problems don't solve themselves, but at least you're moving.

The final stretch—"Eyes," "Better Off This Way," "Life/Death"—reads like the emotional arc of every doomed relationship I've categorized in my head at 2am. You can hear the breakdown coming in the song titles alone, and by the time "Good Samaritan" and "Smoke & Mirrors" close it out, you're either transcendent or collapsed on the pavement. Probably both.

Here's what running to garage punk teaches you: the first mile always lies to you. It tells you this will be easy, that you'll figure everything out, that by mile five you'll have clarity. You won't. But somewhere around "Sick Day" you'll stop caring about clarity and just focus on the drums, the bassline, the bratty vocals that sound like they're yelling at the same universe you're mad at.

This is a playlist for weekend warriors who are running away from something, not toward anything. It won't make you faster. It won't solve the thing that made you lace up your shoes this morning. But it will make twenty tracks feel like twenty minutes, and sometimes that's enough.