What songs in your rotation get you itching for the road?

[RTD]

I don't know about anybody else, but sometimes I like some instrumental background music when I'm cruising around, either on long stretches or on lonely backroads through hills and mountains. It also makes for some good background ambience when I'm really focusing on a task at work or at home. I tend towards longer, unbroken recordings or loops so the ambience isn't broken by words or breaks in the song.

Bigtime agree.
In my case I need to be careful around hooky melodies and lots of singing: BIG problem with long-term earworms. I can walk through a store and hear a piece of some hit from the ‘80s and it will stick in my head for (no joke) seven weeks without a break.

So I go to things like oldschool Dutch hardstyle techno or extreme metal or old Berlin-school electronic “kosmische” stuff (older Tangerine Dream)... Good for trancing out OR riding, for me at least.

The Bollywood stuff mentioned here (Sholay) works for me since I don’t know the language, so the earworm thing isn’t a problem...and I dig the movies anyway...

But circular beats & riffs (heavy space-rock, 70s krautrock nerd stuff) all works here.

 

[RTD]

Paul Van Dyk and Orbital have made masterpieces in the electronic music genre just like you described. I remember having both of them on endless loops on my commute to school in the early Oughts in the Bay Area and the drive to and fro was essentially a trans experience. Oh to be young and carefree, now can't even remember what that felt like

I spent the 1990s in southern Arizona, so got to experience the desert rave scene at its peak. Great stuff. I only wish I was riding back then: would have been the best of all worlds.

 

[mpp1]

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeJTvvU0Kukw4FBt4tsY9LKJ0BwEuyW_v

 

[Stig57]

There's a very interesting mix in these examples. Some folk, like me, are adrenaline junkies, others relaxation focused and then there are the younger folk.
I couldn't listen to orbital for longer than a couple of minutes but some of the more relaxed stuff I can listen to for hours. To be honest, I can appreciate how a different attitude would be beneficial in the long term. Gene Vincent et al are great to get you going and I'm banned from listening to Rory Gallagher in the car 'cos I tend to put my foot down too far One thing missing is a bit of Reggae. I never listen to music on the bike but in the car I find Toots and The Maytals or the Trojan Instrumentals collection keep me planted.

 

[Aitrus]

Paul Van Dyk and Orbital have made masterpieces in the electronic music genre just like you described. I remember having both of them on endless loops on my commute to school in the early Oughts in the Bay Area and the drive to and fro was essentially a trans experience. Oh to be young and carefree, now can't even remember what that felt like

Woah, that name brings back some memories. I remember first being introduced to Orbital back in high school when the Mortal Kombat and Hackers movies came out. Still one of the greatest techno songs ever produced.

 

[Aitrus]

There's a very interesting mix in these examples. Some folk, like me, are adrenaline junkies, others relaxation focused and then there are the younger folk.

I like this observation. I think it speaks to the various reasons why we ride. Some of us do it for the adrenaline fix, others ride to get away from people and out into the world. Some ride because they want to join a group and be around people of like mind. And then some do it because it's the cheapest way to get around available to them, nothing more.

Our musical preferences seem to reflect that interesting palette of reasons to ride. I'm sure there's some potential for a psychology major's thesis buried in there somewhere.

 

[mpp1]

Obviously you put on music in tune with your mood, nothing wrong with a bit of Elbow or Audioslave: