Track four into track five. Whoever sequenced this understood something about mixtapes I've spent twenty years trying to figure out. You put Iguana Death Cult's "Meat Market" right before THE BOBBY LEES' "Ma Likes to Drink" because that's where the story actually starts. That's where you stop pretending this is just a workout playlist and admit what it really is: another attempt to outrun something that's faster than you are.
I've made this playlist before. Different songs, same delusion. The New Pornographers open with "Really Really Light" because you need to believe the first mile, even though the first mile always lies. FIDLAR's "Sand on the Beach" keeps that lie going—everything's breezy, you're just out for a jog, this isn't about anything deeper. Then STIFF RICHARDS hits with "Bad Disease" and you remember why you laced up at 6 AM on a Tuesday. You're not running toward fitness. You're running away from your own head.
THE BOBBY LEES take over for three straight tracks and this is where the playlist stops being polite. Sam Quartin's voice on "Ma Likes to Drink" has that Brody Dalle rawness—all snarl and desperation and the kind of honesty that makes you uncomfortable at parties. "Drive" and "Death Train" follow because once you start telling the truth, you can't stop halfway. This is the section where your legs start arguing with your brain about whether this was a good idea. Your legs are losing.
Here's what I know about power pop and punk on a running playlist: it's never about the BPM. Barry would argue with me about this—he'd pull out some chart showing optimal cadence zones and VO2 max correlations. But TV On The Radio's "Happy Idiot" doesn't work at mile 2.5 because of tempo science. It works because Dave Sitek's production is all controlled chaos, and that's exactly what running feels like when you're doing it to clear your head. Spoiler: it never works.
Paramore's "This Is Why" sits right where you need it. Hayley Williams wrote this after eighteen years of being told what pop-punk should sound like, and you can hear every argument she didn't have with every producer who wanted her to be more Warped Tour and less Post-Post-. It's the wall breaker because it's the moment you stop running away from something and start running toward the possibility that maybe you're not as stuck as you think you are. Maybe.
The back half—Ausmuteants, Jaded Juice Riders, Teen Mortgage, Liily—is all Melbourne and Brooklyn and bands you'd find in the dollar bin at Championship Vinyl if Dick hadn't already pulled them for himself. This is where the playlist gets interesting. "New Planet" sounds like The Saints if they'd grown up on ADHD medication and too much internet. "Ready To Go" is three minutes of not overthinking anything, which is impossible for me but I appreciate the suggestion.
Then Death From Above 1979 closes with "Don't Stop Believin'" and look, I know what you're thinking. But this isn't the Journey version. This is Sebastien Grainger and Jesse F. Keeler taking that title and turning it into five minutes of bass-drum brutalism. It's a cover that's really a middle finger, which is the most punk thing you can do to a classic rock radio staple. It's also the perfect way to end a runaway playlist—take the thing everyone knows and make it mean something completely different.
Top 5 albums I kept from relationships that ended: 1) Sing Sing Death House—The Distillers (She said Tim Armstrong was "too old for her tastes" which felt personal), 2) Coral Fang—The Distillers (Same ex, different year, she still didn't get it), 3) Mass Romantic—The New Pornographers (Wrong relationship, right power pop, still hurts), 4) Champion Versions—Goldie (He kept the turntable, I kept this, bad trade), 5) Let England Shake—PJ Harvey (Nobody left, I just listen to this when I need to remember what good songwriting sounds like). Honorable mention: every Rancid album because you don't give those up for anyone.
This playlist is 37 minutes, which is either the perfect 5K soundtrack or proof that you can't actually run away from yourself in under forty minutes. I've tried both theories. The playlist is right more often than I am.
