180 BPM Running Playlist

TheLoraxis
TheLoraxis Posts: 6 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hello fellow runners!

I run to music in the 180 beat per minute (BPM) range. I know that there are many who run at this cadence for various reasons (just google it, if you aren't aware of the them). I know that many people also don't run to music, and that's fine as well -- no need to debate the merits of music/no music in this post. It's been hashed/rehashed in many forums.

I've been running for about 5 years, and I have spent about 4 of those 5 years collecting and compiling a massive playlist of songs within that BPM range, because I get tired of listening to the same songs over and over. I do this by analyzing newly published music, then actually taking them out for a run-test before they get added to the list. I do this manually because I haven't been terribly happy with automated BPM analyses - the BPM can be incorrectly calculated, or the tempo can change within a song.

As you can imagine, this is lots of work! It helps me to do the work if I think that I'm not only doing this for me, but contributing to the running community in some way, so I like to share the list. I like to think of this as a public service, since I make $0 for my effort ;)

So here it is, if you are interested....

http://open.spotify.com/user/12721221/playlist/3r2wxY9jV4ls42Tm8aMBWA

Please note that it is an ALL genres list, so if you don't like all genres, you may need to use it only as a reference or a way to find new music. It really is a massive amount of music, with over 3200 tunes currently, and over 200 hours of playtime.

If you are interested in reading a blog post about this list, here's one from 2013: http://theloraxis.wordpress.com/2013/02/07/spotify-and-the-giant-180bpm-running-playlist/

Hope this is useful to some of you, and if you do run with it, enjoy!

Replies

  • Lemongrab13
    Lemongrab13 Posts: 206 Member
    Wow, that's really kind of you!
    Finding music is always a hassle for me, so this is fantastic. Thank you! :bigsmile: :heart: :drinker:
  • CarmineDeMarco
    CarmineDeMarco Posts: 39 Member
    Do you ever take songs that you really like, and alter their tempo using Audacity to bring them to 180 BPM?
  • TheLoraxis
    TheLoraxis Posts: 6 Member
    I used to, before I focused on just finding music in the correct range. The reason I stopped was that sometimes the Audacity "correction" wasn't "correct", and that was just annoying :) That has to do with an initial faulty automated bmp detection. Maybe that's gotten better in the years since I originally gave it a go?
  • sakuragreenlily
    sakuragreenlily Posts: 334 Member
    This is really awesome! Thanks :)
  • shiver222
    shiver222 Posts: 1
    This is excellent - Really helpful! I will check it out soon.

    Thank you for sharing!
  • send2Tia
    send2Tia Posts: 4
    I appreciate your hard work as well, thank you! :-)
  • TheLoraxis
    TheLoraxis Posts: 6 Member
    Thanks everyone for the encouraging words! Thought I'd just give you some pointers to other sources of music that you may or may not know about....

    Most people are familiar with jog.fm. It's a reasonably good source of music that is searchable by bpm. They still have some issues with automated bpm detection algorithms, but now they have a button that allows you to flag songs with the incorrect bpm which seems to have helped the problems there.

    Playlists.net is a great source of shared playlists -- and you can search running, run, 180 bpm, etc., etc., to find various lists. If you aren't interested in 180, you can look for other playlists instead. These are all great sources of inspiration.

    Have a great day/night, wherever you are!

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