What BPM is best for general running?

SIX AM features an average 140 BPM, ideal for general running workouts.

SIX AM - Running Music

The curator's formula is brutally simple: six bands, three songs each, zero negotiation. Off With Their Heads opens with "Clear The Air" and I'm already tasting the Minneapolis basement show aesthetic—raw, unpolished, three chords refusing to apologize for existing. This isn't a playlist built on smooth transitions or carefully curated mood arcs. This is the musical equivalent of duct tape and defiance, which turns out to be exactly what my cardiovascular system needs at 6 AM when every reasonable part of my brain is filing formal complaints.

The structure works because it mirrors how punk shows actually function: you get three songs from a band, they're gone, next band up. Spanish Love Songs follows Off With Their Heads and the shift is immediate—"Nuevo" hits and suddenly there's melody bleeding through the distortion. This is where the playlist's genre crossover becomes the story: melodic hardcore colliding with midwest emo, skate punk slamming into post-hardcore. My legs don't care about genre taxonomy, but they respond to the tension between Spanish Love Songs' emotional rawness and Off With Their Heads' working-class fury. Four songs deep and the playlist has established its ethos: suffer publicly, call it art, keep running anyway.

Mile three and The Menzingers arrive with "Tellin' Lies"—the tempo doesn't spike but the energy multiplies. This is the genius of the genre blend: punk's three-chord simplicity as foundational fuel, emo's emotional honesty as the payload. The playlist refuses genre purity and my pace benefits from the chaos. Red City Radio slots in next and I'm starting to understand the curatorial precision here. Each three-song block is a controlled detonation timed for maximum impact. "We Are the Sons of Woody Guthrie" is pure working-class anthem fuel—Woody wrote dust bowl ballads, Red City Radio wrote punk songs about economic anxiety, I'm running in circles at dawn because sitting still feels worse.

Thirty-seven minutes in and Taking Back Sunday's "Liar (It Takes One To Know One)" detonates exactly when my quadriceps start composing resignation letters. This is Mile 5 territory, where the brain suggests fake injuries and the body wants to negotiate early retirement. Adam Lazzara's vocals are pharmaceutical-grade momentum—part scream, part melody, all refusal to quit. Brand New follows and the emo-to-post-hardcore escalation is surgical. "Seventy Times 7" at track seventeen is the playlist saying the quiet part loud: we're all out here running from something, might as well have a soundtrack. The Misfits close it out with "Some Kinda Hate" because of course they do—horror punk as the final word, Glenn Danzig's snarl reminding me that choosing to suffer at 6 AM is its own form of rebellion. The DIY ethos isn't just aesthetic here, it's functional: six bands who built their own scenes, three songs each, proving that refusing to quit when your body wants to is the most punk thing you can do.

SIX AM

Six Bands, Three Songs Each, Zero Mercy for Your Central Nervous System

Tracks

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