YAR

What came first—the need to run or the need to outrun something? I've been thinking about this while staring at this playlist called "YAR - Running music," which promises to be running music to crash your yacht to. I don't own a yacht. I own sneakers held together by spite and a record collection that's basically a filing system for my emotional damage. But the metaphor lands: this is music for people who've never learned to pace themselves, in running or in life.

Twenty-three tracks of post-punk pulse, egg punk chaos, noise rock, and psychedelic surf—JOHN (TIMESTWO), Deeper, La Luz, Hot Garbage. Bands that sound like they recorded in basements that smelled like mildew and bad decisions. The kind of music Barry would defend to the death and Dick would quietly own on three different vinyl pressings. The kind I pretend not to need but always come back to.

Here's what nobody tells you about running: the first mile is a liar. Your body says you've got this, and then mile two arrives like a bill you forgot to pay. This playlist doesn't lie to you. It opens with "Morphology" and "This Heat"—angular, twitchy post-punk that sounds like your brain trying to outthink your legs. You're not settling into a groove yet. You're negotiating with your body, and the music knows it. Space rock meets post-punk, all dissonance and propulsion. You're moving, but you're not sure why yet.

By the time you hit "Future Thinker" and "Edible Door," something shifts. The garage rock urgency kicks in, and suddenly you're not thinking about your breathing anymore. You're thinking about that relationship you thought you could fix if you just made the perfect mixtape. Spoiler: you couldn't. The music gets louder, faster, messier—egg punk and noise rock piling on top of each other like arguments you never resolved. "Scattered Palms..." into "Too Much Money" into "Skin"—each track a little more unhinged than the last. This is the part of the run where you stop being careful. This is the part where you forget to pace yourself because the music won't let you.

Top 5 Reasons This Playlist Is Built for People Who Never Learned to Coast:

1. The sequencing refuses to give you a breather—just like you refuse to admit when you're tired. "Boudicaaa" follows "Skin" with zero mercy, all queercore aggression and psychedelic noise. You wanted chill? Wrong playlist.

2. Every track sounds slightly unfinished, like it was recorded in one take and everyone said "good enough." That's the aesthetic. Perfection is boring. Crashing your yacht is memorable.

3. The mid-playlist stretch ("Loose Teeth" through "Alexa!") is pure chaos theory—trip hop colliding with noise rock, neo-psychedelic bleeding into garage punk. It mirrors mile four of a run when your brain starts lying to you about stopping.

4. No obvious singles, no radio-friendly moments. Just deep cuts and bands your coworkers have to look up. That's the point. You're not running to Spotify's algorithm. You're running to something that feels discovered, not assigned.

5. The whole thing sounds like it was curated by someone who thinks "full throttle" is a personality trait. They're right.

"The Warden" hits around track sixteen, and you realize this playlist has been building to something without telling you. It's not a wall you hit—it's a wall you crash through. The production stays raw, the tempo stays relentless, but there's a strange clarity now. You're two-thirds through the run, your legs are screaming, and the music finally makes sense. You weren't running to escape. You were running to prove you could still feel something sharp and real. The noise isn't chaos anymore. It's structure. It's the only honest thing you've heard all week.

The final stretch—"London," "Dog Walker," "Reset My Password"—sounds like the cooldown you're not ready for. The psychedelic surf elements creep back in, but the post-punk edge never fully disappears. You finish the run the same way you started it: not entirely sure why you needed this, but certain you did. Your legs hurt. Your brain is quieter. The playlist did its job.

I've been running to this for a week now, and here's what I've figured out: music like this doesn't care if you finish strong. It cares if you showed up and didn't phone it in. Same with relationships. Same with life. You crash your yacht or you don't leave the harbor. Those are the options. Dick would tell me I'm overthinking it. Barry would argue that track nine should've been track three. They're both wrong. The only mistake is coasting.