Well Hello, it must be Monday again. I don’t know about you, but sometimes, despite my varied schedule, I do still tend to suffer from a touch of Monday-itis. One of the better ways to combat my sluggish Monday Mode is to listen to some up-tempo fun tunes to get me in the mood to tackle the day head on. So in this post I’m going to focus on four songs to get your heart rate up and a smile on your face.
This first song is what I call my #1 workout song. If anyone ever asks for a recommendation on a song to add to their exercise playlist, I recommend this one without fail. A few years ago when I was heavily into jumping rope for exercise, I used to use this song to do a mad skipping workout. At around 7 minutes long, and 145 BPM (that’s beats per minute) you are sure to get a kick out of working out to this. And if you skip to it, I guarantee you at around 5 minutes into it, if you can keep up, the endorphins really start to kick in. I’m pretty sure I had an out-of-body experience running to this song once too. For me, it’s the perfect mix of tempo, sound and build-up, so fantastic to dance to or exercise to in whatever way you love to exercise. The lyrics are definitely not happy shiny rainbows, but that just leads to a way more powerful song, in my opinion. Workout songs don’t have to be happy and cheerful, in fact, some of the best ones are a bit darker, and can motivate you to push that little bit harder when you have to.
Infected Mushroom have been around since the mid-90s, and are just an incredible psytrance group hailing from Israel. I have seen them live three times, and each time has been mind-blowing. Honestly, if you’ve never heard of them before, it is well worth checking them out. And if you have heard of them before, no doubt you are nodding your head in agreement whilst I wax on about how great they are. I personally recommend the album Legend Of The Black Shawarma as a good jumping off point.
Ahhhhhh
I hope I can chill and stay the same
Stop the bleed inside / And feel again
Cut the chain of lies / You’ve been my feeding my veins
I got nothing to say to you…
Keeping with the psytrance theme (you may come to learn through my Music Monday posts that I adore psytrance), here is another of my favourite psytrance groups, Pendulum. Pendulum originated in Perth Western Australia in 2002, and like Infected Mushroom, are known for mixing harder rock elements with electronic music, creating their own sub-genre of psytrance / electronica that has been a global success. I have never seen Pendulum live, but I’m pretty sure I’d feel like I’d died and gone to heaven if I did.
The Vulture never fails to fill me with energy and make me want to bounce around like a mad thing. At 174 BPM it makes a great workout song, and will make you want to fistpump the air as you do it.
We’re taking the power…
Now onto something a bit happier – let’s get some hardcore into our lives, shall we? When my husband was a DJ “back in the day” Darren Styles was his absolute favourite dance artist. And, of course, that totally rubbed off on me. To be fair, Styles has had an enduring career and is really at the top of his game when it comes to this genre of music. Not only is he an outstanding DJ and producer, but he also does the vocals on most of his tracks, making him a complete triple threat. Total talent, and fantastic tuneage. This is an old song, circa 2007-ish, but in my mind it’s a classic. Styles tours the UK and Eurpoe quite often, performing at all of the biggest dance music festivals around. If you’ve ever had a chance to see him perform, I’m completely envious of you.
I have been waiting, all of my life
For you to come along, and make everything alright
My body’s shaking, right through my bones
So take me by the hand, please don’t leave me here alone
And I wonder if you know just how I feel…
To round of today’s fab four, I figured what’s exercise without a bit of Crystal Castles. I’ve included them in Music Mondays before, but this song is a little more mainstream than the last tune I recommended. I’m Not In Love comes in at a respectable 136 BPM, so is good for jogging, warm ups, cool downs or weights. As an added bonus – Robert Smith! Yes, I even managed to find a slightly “goth” work out song – go me!
‘Cause it’s cold outside, when you coming home
‘Cause it’s hot inside, isn’t that enough
I’m not in love…
Aaaaand that’s a wrap!
As always, leave me some comment love and let me know what you think of my playlist for this week. I hope I’ve managed to introduce you to some tunes that you hadn’t heard before, or just revisited some old faves you haven’t listened to in ages.
Happy Listening!
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