MAYNINTH

What came first - the running or the neurotic need to categorize every feeling into a perfectly sequenced soundtrack? I'm three miles into "MAYNINTH - Running music" and I still don't have an answer. Someone made a playlist called "Happy Mayninth!" and I need to understand why that exclamation point feels both celebratory and deeply suspicious.

Let me tell you about trying to run to happiness. It's harder than it sounds.

"Good Times Only" opens this thing and immediately I'm skeptical. Nobody leads with good times only unless they're trying to convince themselves. But then "Money Time Love" hits and there's this garage rock urgency that makes sense - those three things in that order, the hierarchy we pretend we don't have. "Over" and "Slip Away" create this weird darkwave comedown, and suddenly we're not talking about happiness at all. We're talking about what happens after happiness, which is obviously the more interesting conversation.

Here's what I'm realizing around mile two: this playlist isn't celebrating Mayninth - whatever that means, some personal holiday I'll never understand - it's cataloging all the ways joy refuses to stay put. "LIKE YOU" and "Keep on Doing That" have this manic quality, like if you just keep moving fast enough, feeling good becomes automatic. I've tried that. Spoiler: it doesn't work.

The Crispies and Hembree tracks keep showing up, this nueva trova influence that makes no sense until it does. There's something about garage rock filtered through Cuban storytelling tradition that captures exactly what running feels like when you're trying to outpace your own brain. You're moving forward but you're also circling back, same streets different speed, same thoughts different soundtrack.

"Sadness - Unquiet Live Session" at track seven is either brilliant or sadistic. Right when your legs start lying to you about how much further you can go, here comes a live session about sadness. But it's an unquiet sadness, which means it's the kind that makes you move. I've made mixtapes like this - the ones where you bury the truth in the middle hoping nobody notices. They always notice.

Top 5 Moments Where This Playlist Accidentally Tells The Truth About Trying To Feel Good:

1. Opening with "Good Times Only" but immediately undercutting it with "Money Time Love" - the hierarchy of what actually matters versus what we pretend matters.

2. "Slip Away" right after all that forced optimism - the acknowledgment that nothing stays, especially not the feeling you're chasing.

3. That "Sadness" live session at the exact moment your body wants to quit - sometimes you have to name the thing to run through it.

4. "Terrorize" and "The Runaround" back to back - the manic energy of trying to outrun your own patterns while knowing you're just running in circles.

5. Closing with "Thought We Were Falling In Love" after "Half a Brain" - the admission that you were only half-present for your own happiness, which is why you're still trying to figure it out on mile six.

"PREACHER" hits at track eight and I'm thinking about everyone who's tried to sell me on happiness like it's a religion you just have to commit to hard enough. The garage rock snarl on this track knows better. "Good God Regina It's A Bomb" is either a band name, a song title, or both, and I appreciate the chaos of not knowing which. That's what this playlist does - refuses to settle into one feeling long enough for you to get comfortable.

By "Terrorize" I'm fully in it. My legs have that good ache, the kind that means you're actually doing something instead of just thinking about doing something. The darkwave elements make more sense when you're sweating - it's music for bodies in motion, minds refusing to quiet down. Hifiklub's production across these tracks has this compressed urgency, everything turned up just slightly too loud, which is exactly how running feels when it's actually working.

"The Runaround" into "Dixie Queen" is the playlist giving up on linear narrative. We're just throwing sounds at the wall now, seeing what sticks. "No Refunds" is the policy on Mayninth, apparently - you're in it, whatever it is, no backing out now.

"Bang Bang" has that garage rock swagger that makes you pick up pace even when your body's negotiating for walking breaks. I'm thinking about all the Top 5 lists I've made about songs that make you feel invincible. They're all lies. You're never invincible. You're just moving fast enough that the vulnerability can't catch up for three minutes and forty-seven seconds.

"Half a Brain" near the end is perfect placement - that's exactly what you're running on by track fifteen. The full brain gave up two miles ago. You're operating on instinct, muscle memory, and the stubborn refusal to stop before the playlist ends.

Then "Thought We Were Falling In Love" closes it out and suddenly Mayninth makes terrible, beautiful sense. It's not a celebration. It's that moment when you realize the thing you thought was happening wasn't actually happening, but you're still glad you believed it for a while. You were falling, definitely falling, just not necessarily in love. Maybe just falling at a tempo you could run to.

What came first - the happiness or the need to make a playlist proving you felt it? What came first - Mayninth or the exclamation point trying to convince you it matters? I still don't know. But I'm six miles in and I finally stopped trying to figure it out. That might be the whole point.