Musical Motivation

By Tara R. McKee

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” Bob Marley

The New Year is about to begin and you’ve made some resolutions for the year. In 2010 you are planning on getting in better shape, perhaps you’ll take on a triathlon, or several of them, or you want to take on a century ride. Whatever your goals, a good time to start is January. The only problem for those of us in the north is that January is cold. And snowy. The roads are icy. Sometimes, the air is dirty because of a cold air inversion so that exercising outdoors is as bad as smoking a pack of cigarettes. Ugh! It’s for times like these that treadmills and bike trainers were invented.

Sometimes though, running on the treadmill can be boring and cycling on the trainer can be monotonous. I know, I’ve run for more than two hours at a time on a treadmill and put in hours on the trainer. I couldn’t have done it without music on my MP-3 player though. Music can help you to exercise longer and help lessen the perception of fatigue and keep you motivated.

Certain kinds of music work better for working out. Scientifically, you can aim for music with high beats per minute (BPM) for running and intense workouts on your trainer (within a range of 147-160.) But seriously, after pouring over lists and lists of music and the appropriate BPMs, I say, science-schmience! Some with lower BPMs (e.g. Mambo No. 5 by Lou Bega which has a score of 87.05) seem to have a great danceable beat that enable me to tick off 7-minute miles on the treadmill just fine, thank you! Toni Basil’s Mickey, is appropriately 148.26, but seriously, I can’t listen to it very often anymore.

To help you get through the month of January, we made some play lists for your exercising pleasure. So get out those I-Tunes gift cards, and check out these tunes online. Some of the songs hit the perfect BPM, some are lower. I list no more than one song per artist. If you like the song I list, you may like others from that artist and can check them out in more depth elsewhere. The songs vary from well-known to less so and most of them have a steady tempo, suitable for dancing. There are a few with an increasing tempo that work great for increasing your speed during the song. I separated the songs by decade. My 90’s playlists are skimpier than the 80’s & 00’s. Perhaps it was because I was focused on children or perhaps it wasn’t my favorite music decade. Either way, if any of our readers have suggestions…we’d love to hear from you!

80’s New Wave/Pop-

• Pearl in the Shell—Howard Jones
• Chains of Love –Erasure
• Relax—Frankie Goes to Hollywood
• Junebug –B-52s
• Mirror Man—Human League
• Blue Monday—New Order
• Love My Way– The Psychedelic Furs
• Politics of Dancing—Re-Flex
• Send Me An Angel—Real Life
• Burning Down The House—Talking Heads
• Lies—The Thompson Twins
• Better Be Good To Me—Tina Turner
• Mony, Mony –Billy Idol
• Why Can’t I Be You?—The Cure
• I Send A Message—INXS
• Dead Man’s Party—Oingo Boingo
• Big Time—Peter Gabriel
• Simply Irresistable—Robert Palmer
• Don’t Go—Yaz
• One Thing Leads to Another—FIXX
• Whisper to a Scream—Icicle Works
• Walk Like An Egyptian –The Bangles
• I Want Candy –Bow Wow Wow
• Dance Hall Days (Flashing Back to Happiness)—Wang Chung (fast-pace version)

80’s Club Music (ok, a couple are from 1979)

• I Feel For You –Chaka Khan
• Let It Whip –Dazz Band
• The Reverend—DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
• Wanna Be Startin’ Something—Michael Jackson
• AEIOU (And Sometimes Y) –Ebn-Ozn
• You Dropped A Bomb On Me –The Gap Band
• What’s On Your Mind (Pure Energy) –Information Society
• U Can’t Touch This—MC Hammer
• Neutron Dance—The Pointer Sisters
• Jam The Box—Pretty Tony
• Kiss—Prince
• The Glamorous Life (“Club Edit”)—Sheila E.
• Rapper’s Delight—Sugarhill Gang (steady, slower beat)
• Pump Up The Jam—Technotronic
• Oh Yeah—Yello

90’s Alternative/Rock—Many of these start slow & speed up

• Short Skirt/Long Jacket—Cake
• Higher—Creed
• Never Gonna Let You Go—Third Eye Blind
• Take My Picture—Filter
• I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)—The Proclaimers
• All I Want to Do—Sheryl Crow
• One Headlight—The Wallflowers
• Can’t Get Enough of You Baby—Smashmouth
• Mysterious Ways—U2
• Better Days (And the Bottom Drops Out)—Citizen King
• You Get What You Give—New Radicals
• Fly Away—Lenny Kravitz
• Personal Jesus—Depeche Mode
• Barely Breathing—Duncan Sheik (appropriate cool-down song)

90’s Dance

• Tubthumbing—Chumbawamba (weird song, lots of var.)
• Everybody Dance Now (Gonna Make You Sweat)—C & C Music Factory
• Get Ready for This –DP/4
• Blue (Da Ba Dee) –Eifell 65
• Unbelievable –EMF
• Real, Real, Real –Jesus Jones
• Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit of…)—Lou Bega
• Pump Up The Volume –M.A.R.R.S.
• It’s Tricky—Run DMC
• The Power—Snap!
• Bodyrock—Moby
• White Lines (Don’t Do It) (Elite Force Mix)–Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel  (7 min. long)

Rock/Alternative 2000-2009

• Move Along –The All-American Rejects
• Clocks—Coldplay
• Thnks Fr Th Mmrs  –Fall Out Boy
• Learn To Fly—Foo Fighters (steady w/ slight var. & higher energy on chorus)
• The Middle –Jimmy Eat World
• Say It Right—Nelly Furtado
• Savin’ Me—Nickelback
• Mercy—OneRepublic
• Blurry—Puddle of Mudd (var. in tempo)
• Nancy Drew—Relient K
• Check Yes Juliet—We The Kings
• Beverly Hills—Weezer
• Krptonite—3 Doors Down
• Juicy—Ezra
• Over My Head (Cable Car)—The Fray
• How Far We’ve Come –Matchbox Twenty
• Holiday—Green Day
• The Reason—Hoobastank

Dance-able 2000-2009

• All the Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) –Beyonce
• Around The World –Countdown
• Get the Party Started—P!nk
• 19-2000 (Soul Child Remix)—Gorillaz (fairly steady, slight var. on chorus)
• It’s My Life—No Doubt.)
• 3Am –The KLF (high energy, slight var. w/ pause)
• Makes Me Wonder –Maroon 5
• Hot ‘N’ Cold—Katy Perry
• Good Girl, Bad Boy—Junior Senior
• Don’t Stop The Music—Rihanna
• When Did Your Heart Go Missing?—Rooney
• Starry-Eyed Surprise –Oakenfold
• Round & Round –Bodyrockers
• Galvanize –The Chemical Brothers (good for increasingly faster pace during song)
• Miles and Miles—Dee
• Temperature—Sean Paul
• The Way I R—Timbaland
• Shake It—Metro Station
• Grace Kelly—Mika
• I Gotta Feeling –Black Eyed Peas
• I’d Like To—Corinne Bailey Rae
• That’s Not My Name—The Ting Tings
• Crazy—Gnarls Barkley
• Ooh La La—Goldfrapp  (Slowly increasing then steady—higher energy on chorus)
• Starry-Eyed Surprise—Oakenfold

Warning—A few of these songs are a bit PG-13 from the 90′s on. Find the cleanest versions you can, especially if you have young children that you don’t want singing along.