"Road Music" - what's your pleasure?

Cafe Society
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This was a toss-up between here and the Cafe - I decided here since it’s more opinion related than strictly music related. Mods, if you think it needs to move, then let your muse be your guide.

Road Music - almost all of us have an idea of what makes a good song “for the road.” I’ve been compiling road music (first on tapes, then CD’s, now MP3 playlists) for years. There’s something about pulling together a group of your favorite songs to play, preferably LOUD, when you’re facing hours and hours of highway.

For me, road music serves one of two basic purposes - as a means to reduce boredom or as a way to trigger introspection. The radio never does it for me and just putting on a particular album to play all the way through doesn’t either. I’ve had perfect playlists take me from one gas stop to the next with barely any notice of what was in between.

As an example, one of the playlists I’ve got in the MP3 player right now for the road starts out with these songs:

Everclear - Here We Go Again
Blind Melon - No Rain
Gin Blossoms - 29
Pet Shop Boys - Go West
Matchbox Twenty - Real World
Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus
Birdbrain - Youth of America
INXS - Heaven Sent

… snd so on for another 120 songs or so.

So what is it that makes a good playlist of road music? Why do we do this? What is it about great songs and the road that makes such a powerful combination? Is it just as simple as having the control over your favorites all the time (as opposed to searching for a new radio station every 150 miles) or is it something deeper? When you pull a playlist together, are you more interested in vocals, instrumentals, fast, slow, deep, shallow, what?

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Hmm… for me it depends on the mood I’m in at the time of the drive. Often I like a lot of almost hyper music that I can turn up and sing loudly to (mainly stuff by Captain Tractor, Great Big Sea, Arrogant Worms and the like…) Sometimes for a change I like to listen to country music… Highwaymen, Johnny Cash, Waylen Jennings, Willie Nelson, Gordon Lightfoot… that sort of stuff. And for those times when I truly want to be on the road I stick in some truck driving tunes like CW McCall : Convoy, Jim & Jesse : Deisel on my tail, bunch of Red Sovine (Phantom 309, Giddy up Go), Roger Miller, Johnny Paycheck, Hank Snow…

My brother likes to play a lot of hip hop and some rave music, at even louder levels than I do (but he’s 17 what do you expect?) but when I’m with him he at least allows me to play some of my music… though it’s only where our tastes match he skips over everything else.

3

OMG!

Golden Earring: Radar Love
Velvet Underground: Ocean
Godmother: Big Engines
Neko Case: Deep Red Bells, or Set Out Running
Neil Young: Roll Another Number
Bruce Springsteen: Born in the USA, or Nebraska
Stooges: Loose

4

CCR

5

Depends on my mood. I find the fast stuff by Nightwish to be perfect for those “120MPH Cause I Gotta Make Some Time” moments. If it’s a classic rock kinda day, “More Than A Feeling” by Boston, “Magic Carpet Ride” by Steppenwolf, that kind of thing. If it’s sitting back and just rollin’, it’s time to turn on the rap. I like “Still Fly” by the Big Tymers, “Gin and Juice” and “Nuthin’ But a G Thang” by Snoop and Dre, etc. Here’s a rock kinda Road CD playlist I had, too:

Beastie Boys–Intergalactic
Moby–Southside
Live–The Dolphin’s Cry
Fuel–Shimmer
Motorhead–Ace of Spades
MxPx–I’m Ok, You’re Ok
etc.

Pretty much everything is good.

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My car’s CD player is currently loaded with:

Creed - Weathered
Staind - Break the Cycle
13th Floor Elevators - A compilation
Van Halen - Diver Down
Allman Bros. - Live at the Fillmore East
Frank Zappa - Strictly Commercial

That’ll easily get me to Dallas and back.

7

It really depends where and when I’m driving. Driving at night with nothing to do and no where to go: Anything with loud bass. Techno, some hip-hop etc. Words, songs, artists don’t matter, as long as it’s got the beat.

If you’re cruising downt he highway in the summer on your way someplace I like things like “Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues” by the Eels, or “Over The Hills and Far Away” by Led Zeplin. And of course the ultimate road trip song: “Born to be Wild” by Steppenwolfe

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Bad 80s. And Great Big Sea. (They are NOT bad or 80s.) Upbeat stuff.

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Yay! Great Big Sea rules!

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I like Bob Dylan when I’m driviing. I can sing every song along with the stereo. (which is the only time I get to sing along. alone in the car)

Old country is good also. David Alan Coe and Johnny Cash.

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Psst… if you people like Great Big Sea check out some Arrogant Worms and Captain Tractor… similar type of music, lots of fun songs only the other two are from out West instead of East… CT celebrated 10 years just a couple weeks ago… I can’t wait for their new cd to come out really wants a copy of the song North of the Yellowhead I already told whiterabbit this lol[/hijack]

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When I used to smoke and my little truck took me miles and miles along deserted highway routes, I’d always start out to Soul Coughing’s “Rolling.” I love the beat and the funkiness of the now-defunct band. They have a “greatest hits” CD that has all their best stuff, if’n yer interested.

I agree with TheLoadedDog that Creedence Clearwater Revival is great road music.

Basically, anything with a beat or a rythm that wakes me up, often something I can sing along to…and some silly shit thrown in for fun. I don’t smoke anymore and drive a way cushier car so I have to find things that will really break up the time.

John Lee Hooker–“Boogie Chillen” --"'cuz it’s in him, and it’s gotta come out!"-- “Boom Boom,” “Big Legs, Tight Skirt,” and of course, “One Bourbon, One Scotch, and One Beer.”

“Believe” from the Run Lola Run soundtrack.

“Alleluia” from Dar Williams

“Untouchable Face” & “Superhero” from Ani DiFranco

“Get Right With God” & “Just Wanted to See You So Bad” Lucinda Williams

“The Road Goes on Forever,” “I’m Coming Home to You,” “Copenhagen” and almost everything else by Robert Earl Keen Jr. (His Live albums are great)

“Professor Booty” & others from the Beastie Boys

“Gopher Mambo” Yma Sumac

DJ Doll REMIX has fun stuff on it–and I love the album cover. “Punjabi Attitude” is another good one, with another cool cover.
“Thousand Miles from Nowhere” by Dwight Yoakam is good yodeling for lonely stretches of moonlit highway. Speaking of yodeling, Don Walser’s “Rolling Stone From Texas” is a lot of fun to try and keep up with, and Slim Whitman’s pretty fun. (His “Indian Love Song” is what they used to defeat the aliens in Mars Attacks!.)

Paul Simon’s “Graceland”

Shakira, U2 (esp. the “Joshua Tree” album), the “Office Space” soundtrack, Rod Stewart, Rosemary Clooney, Tom Waits, Kinky Friedman, the Gypsy Kings, and of course, the Beatles. And the late great Johnny Cash–I love his duet with his future wife June Carter on the Folsom Prison Blues album, “Jackson.” I just love the way her voice rips out.

Now I have a burning mix-making need.

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What I listen too completely depends on the mood. Although, I do commute atleast a couple hours a day. Fortunately I get to have my mp3’s going at my desk too so I get a little over everything. In the car though I love to hear hyper (well to me its hyper) or it gets me hyper music:

Danzig/Misfits/Samhain
NIN
Manson
White Stripes (my new obsession, just saw em play last week)
Pearl Jam
Foo Fighters
Ozzy
CCR
Metallica
Fuel
etc… Could go on forever.

Then of course there is the Radio.

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I’m away ahead of you, OF, lurve em both.

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Mozart
Bach
Offenbach
Leo Kottke
Erasure
Squeeze
Collective Soul
Cowboy Junkies
Connie Dover
Aria
Flatt & Scruggs
Asleep at the Wheel

sufficiently diverse for ya?

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I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned Willie Nelson - On The Road Again!

Me, as long as it’s something I like. Basically any rock from the '70s or '80s works for me. Fleetwood Mac, Jefferson Starship, Heart, Steve Miller Band, The Cars, Bob Seger, Boston, Rush, that sort of thing. It depends on your taste (I’ve never heard of some of the groups mentioned here!) :smiley:

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To keep awake, electronica: trance, techno, etc.

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Hey, what a coincidence! Right now I’ve been sitting here flicking between the SDMB and a list of songs for a tape that I’m making for a friend who’s going on a road trip around Australia. One of those big, epic “finding yourself” kind of journeys.

So far I’ve got a few songs about travelling, moving on, looking forward and good times ahead…

Moving – Supergrass
Someday – Ash
Roam – The B-52’s
So Let Me Go Far – Dodgy
There Goes the Fear – Doves
Now It’s On – Grandaddy
A Place Called Home – PJ Harvey
Maybe Tomorrow – The Stereophonics
We’ve Only Just Begun – Grant Lee Buffalo
So Far Away – Carole King
The Universal – Blur

…as well as a heap of other songs that are fast, fun, thunderous, and worthy of a big grin or a good shout-along – perfect for winding down the window, turning up the volume and singing at the top of your lungs as you cruise down the Pacific Highway.

The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret – Queens of the Stoneage
My Favourite Game – The Cardigans
Seven Nation Army – The White Stripes
Just – Radiohead
Champagne Supernova – Oasis
Hazy Shade of Winter – The Bangles
Cannonball – Breeders
Come Together – The Beatles
Disco – The Music
Debaser – The Pixies
Still in Hollywood – Concrete Blonde
Up With People! – Lambchop
Sunday Morning – No Doubt
Like a Dog – Powderfinger
Express Yourself – Madonna
The Modern Age – The Strokes
One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces – Ben Folds Five
Video Killed the Radio Star – The Buggles
The Weight – The Band

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Oh, and “The Joker” is a required road song, if only so you can sing along Homer-style.

“Some people call me the space cowboy…”

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Is there any other road music than Reverend Horton Heat?