On the run
There's a moment between tracks where you know the mixtape is about to reveal something—not about the person who made it, but about the condition they were trying to name. EXCUSES doesn't ease into that revelation; it opens with King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard's "Le Risque" and "Shanghai" back-to-back, both from 2022's *Changes*, and you can hear what the whole 53 minutes is arguing: the choice to move forward after the reason to move forward has already expired.
Between 2020 and 2024, artists from Melbourne, Stockholm, Coventry, Athens—zero cities appearing twice, no dominant producer—kept releasing records under titles that read like pre-emptive surrenders. *Cave World*. *NOW THAT'S WHY I KILLED MUSIC*. *WHEN DID I LAY DOWN AND DIE?* (which Whitey actually titled a track on this playlist). The thesis is institutional irrelevance declared in advance, and the consequence is that the BPM doesn't build or release—it holds at a flat 139 median like a pulse that refuses to race despite everything. Urgency encoded in friction rather than acceleration. "Escalator Man" at 170 and "Goin' to the Beach" at 120 don't feel like outliers; they feel like the same shrug at different volumes.
Fontaines D.C.'s "Starburster" arrives third, off 2024's *Romance* on XL Recordings, and it's the first track that admits what running EXCUSES actually requires: the willingness to keep moving after you've argued yourself out of every reason to stop. Viagra Boys' "Troglodyte" follows—Stockholm's Year0001 roster, 2022's *Cave World*—and the production is intentionally flat, Sebastian Murphy's vocal mixed like he's narrating from the back of the room. Nothing here is trying to inspire you. That's the point.
Warmduscher's "Fashion Week" and Yannis & The Yaw's "Walk Through Fire" hold the middle at a dead-even tempo, both 2020 releases, both from artists who made their names in other projects (Yannis Philippakis was Foals; Warmduscher is a rotating collective including members of Fat White Family and Paranoid London). The music has already survived its own demise once, which is why it sounds like this—no pretense, no build, just the running itself as the only argument left.
Then Whitey's double shot: "SOMEBODY GRAB THE WHEEL" and "WHEN DID I LAY DOWN AND DIE?" Both from *Canned Laughter* (2023, unsigned, self-released), both mixed so dry you can hear the room. By the time "Goin' to the Beach" arrives—Mary Shelley, the fictitious artist from *A Very Potter Musical*, deadpan at 120 BPM—the playlist has made its case. The music wrote the obituary first. What's left is the motion. That's what EXCUSES means: you've run out of reasons, but you're still running.
From the coach
Don't chase the opener. Hold flat, break at 66%.
Tracks 1–2 open at 155 BPM. Do not chase them. Let your heart rate settle into easy pace—these are the warm-up, not the thesis. The run's real work starts at track 3, where the tempo drops to 135 and holds. This is threshold effort disguised as steady state: the BPM refuses to accelerate, so your job is to hold form while the friction builds.
Tracks 5–10 flatten further—133 down to 125. This is the cognitive wall zone, arriving right on schedule around 66% of the run. When "Escalator Man" hits at 170 BPM, do not react to the number. It's a mental reset, not a pace shift. Use the spike to re-anchor your breathing pattern, then let it pass. The tempo is lying; your effort stays level.
Tracks 11–12 jump back to 160. Now you push—this is your final sustained block. Tracks 13–14 cool you down at 130. Finish the argument: no reason to stop, so you didn't.
FAQ
- How should I pace a run to EXCUSES?
- Start with the King Gizzard double shot and settle into your base pace—nothing here is trying to get you excited. The Post-Punk section (tracks 3-5) holds steady at the playlist's median tempo, so don't fight it. When you hit the Whitey Double Shot around minute 22, the music flattens out emotionally but the BPM doesn't drop—that's when you stop negotiating with yourself and just move. The Athens to Tirana section spikes to 170 with 'Escalator Man,' but it's not a sprint cue—it's mechanized forward motion. Let it carry you.
- What type of run is EXCUSES best for?
- This is a weekday 5-6 miler when you've run out of reasons to go but you're lacing up anyway. It's not a tempo run or a recovery jog—it's the run where you're trying to figure something out and the music has already accepted that you won't. The 139 BPM median holds steady enough for a conversational pace, but the emotional flatness means you're not getting a pep talk. You're just getting 53 minutes of forward motion with no pretense attached.
- Does the BPM match my running cadence?
- The playlist holds at 139 BPM median with a standard deviation of 14.7, which means most tracks cluster in the 125-150 range—perfect for a 8:30-9:30 mile pace if you're matching steps to beats. But 'Escalator Man' spikes to 170 and 'Goin' to the Beach' drops to 120, and neither one feels like an outlier—they feel like the same argument at different volumes. The tempo isn't trying to control your pace; it's just refusing to let you stop.
- What makes 'Escalator Man' the key moment?
- It hits at 35 minutes in, right when your body is asking why you're still doing this, and instead of answering the question, Dr Sure's Unusual Practice just cranks the BPM to 170 and keeps the same deadpan energy. The guitar tone is thin, the vocal is buried, the drums are live to tape—nothing about it sounds like a reward. It sounds like the playlist mechanizing your forward motion so you don't have to think about it anymore. That's the wall breaker: not inspiration, just the refusal to stop.
- Why is there a Harry Potter band on a running playlist?
- The Weird Sisters are a fictitious artist from the Goblet of Fire soundtrack—same universe as Mary Shelley from A Very Potter Musical. Both tracks are here because they sound like the music already wrote its own irrelevance and decided to play anyway, which is the whole thesis of EXCUSES. 'ULTRAVIOLET' is the penultimate track, and it doesn't resolve anything—it just holds the same flat energy all the way to 'Bob Ross' by Leeches. You finish because the music already accepted the ending.
- What's with all the self-deprecating album titles?
- Between 2020 and 2024, every artist on this playlist released records with titles like Cave World, NOW THAT'S WHY I KILLED MUSIC, WHEN DID I LAY DOWN AND DIE?—pre-emptive surrenders that became the aesthetic. It's institutional irrelevance declared in advance, and it works for running because the music has already argued itself out of every reason to stop. What's left is just the motion itself, which is exactly what you need on a weekday run when you've got no good excuse to be out here except that you are.
