ROCKY

Past Me named this playlist ROCKY and left the curator note "Yo Adrian, get me a cheesesteak!" which is either brilliance or evidence I was oxygen-deprived during the build. Thirty-eight minutes of skate punk colliding with stoner sludge, garage rock elbowing psychedelic acid trips, egg punk—whatever that is—crashing into folk punk and anti-folk. It's a genre pile-up on I-95, and somehow the wreckage makes perfect fuel for voluntary suffering. The blend works because running is chaos pretending to be linear. You need Radkey's "Victory" opening with garage rock swagger, then Iguana Death Cult's "Meat Market" dragging you into psychedelic swirl, then MONSTERWATCH screaming "Lick the Wall" because your legs are about to meet one anyway.

The magic—or the cruelty—is how this thing refuses to settle. Most playlists give you predictable tempo arcs, neat BPM curves, some corporate consultant's idea of "optimal pacing strategy." ROCKY says screw that, here's YHWH Nailgun with back-to-back minute-and-a-half punk detonations ("Sickle Walk" into "Iron Feet"), then IDLES stretching "Gift Horse" past four minutes of post-punk tension. My cardiovascular system is filing formal complaints, but the playlist's DIY ethos—three chords, raw recording, zero polish—becomes the argument against quitting. Punk running isn't about perfect form or negative splits. It's about the moment at Mile 3 when your brain starts negotiating early retirement and the distortion says absolutely not.

By the time "Stimulation" by Wine Lips hits around twenty-four minutes in, I'm deep in the conversation every runner has with their central nervous system. Legs proposing a truce, lungs staging a walkout, brain suggesting we fake an injury and call an Uber. Wine Lips' garage punk is management's response: three minutes of refusal set to snarling guitars. The genre shifts—stoner rock's heavy sludge grinding against skate punk's caffeinated speed—mirror what's happening physiologically. Some moments need Psychedelic Porn Crumpets' "Nootmare (K.I.L.L.I.n.G) [Meow!]" warping time with neo-psychedelic chaos. Others need Dead Tooth's "Sporty Boy" punching straight through with noise rock clarity.

The final stretch is where ROCKY earns the Balboa reference. THE BOBBY LEES' "Death Train" at thirty-one minutes delivers exactly what the title promises: three minutes of sludge metal momentum that doesn't care about your lactic acid situation. Spoon Benders and Rickshaw Billie's Burger Patrol close with the kind of raw, unpolished energy that makes suffering feel like a choice you'd make again. Philadelphia's favorite fictional boxer ran up museum steps and punched frozen meat. I'm out here voluntarily, chasing a playlist that sounds like it was recorded in a basement and mixed by someone who thinks "too loud" is a suggestion for cowards. Yo Adrian, I did it. Now where's that cheesesteak.