Six AM running is not about health. It's about outrunning the version of yourself that stayed up too late reading message boards about whether Jesse Lacey is more miserable than Adam Lazzara. This playlist is not motivational. There are no EDM builds, no stadium chants, no Imagine Dragons telling you you're a champion. This is basement punk and emo honesty, the kind of music that sounds better when you're tired and questioning your life choices.
It starts with Off With Their Heads because Ryan Young's voice at dawn is like a drill sergeant who also goes to therapy. Three songs of Minneapolis basement punk recorded like they couldn't afford a second take. Your lungs hurt. The drums sound like your hangover feels. This is the first mile lie—the part where your body tries to convince you this was a terrible idea and you should go back to bed.
Then Spanish Love Songs arrive to confirm every bad decision you've made. Dylan Slocum's voice cracks in all the right places, the ones where you realize self-destruction might actually be a sensible career choice. Pure Noise Records honesty—no glossy production, just four songs of emotional reckoning while your heart rate climbs. This is the therapy you can't afford, so you run through it instead.
The Menzingers hit at the eye of the storm. "After the Party" is track nine, right when your legs start lying about quitting. Greg Barnett singing about being late to everything that mattered, and suddenly you're not running away from something—you're running toward the person who figures it out. Will Yip's production knows exactly when to let the guitars swell. This is the wall breaker, the moment the playlist stops being aggressive and becomes honest.
Red City Radio brings the Oklahoma punk with book smarts. Garrett Dale sounds like Tim Barry's younger brother, if Tim Barry grew up reading Steinbeck instead of burning couches. "We Are the Sons of Woody Guthrie" is not ironic—they mean it. Folk punk for people who think protest songs should have power chords.
Taking Back Sunday stripped of theater. Three songs across three albums, all of them Lazzara's desperation with different production budgets. Same argument, better recording studio. Then Brand New—all Deja Entendu venom, all Jesse Lacey singing "die young and save yourself" while you hit mile five and wonder if he was right.
The Misfits end it. Not the Danzig mythology version—the 1978 C.I. Recording garage session. One minute forty-five of pure nihilism. "Some Kinda Hate" finishing everything because Glenn Danzig understood that sometimes the best resolution is no resolution at all. You're done running. The sun is up. You survived yourself for another day.
