The joy of cringe workout music

What's on your playlist?

Do you listen to music when you exercise? I get asked this by every person who talks to me about running for the first time. Last Sunday, I did a sweaty 28.5 kilometers in 28 degrees celsius, which was powered by electrolytes and a playlist. It’s not whether I’m listening at all, but what I’m listening to that’s the real conversation starter.

The sillier, the better. I love recommending the Hamilton soundtrack to anyone who asks me how to start building mileage. People think I’m joking, but the beat just keeps flowing because there’s no breaks in the music. Try it.

I tune in to zone out. Working out is my me-time, and music makes me feel something. My tastes are very eclectic. I usually skew vintage, opting for songs that soundtracked my youth. Some might find my choices embarrassing, but I’m not embarrassed. Pop music is called pop music for a reason — it’s popular. In this era of Instagram discernment, we seem to have culturally decided that it’s cringe to like certain things that are ‘mainstream.’ Trending tracks have meant there’s a right type of track to publicly associate with. But that’s actually mainstream behaviour. More enjoyable is to embrace your own throwbacks, etc. Go your own way.

So last weekend, when I woke up with a craving to listen to Peter Andre’s Mysterious Girl (banger), I leaned in and did just that. I was 6 when that song came out. I have such vivid memories of him being in Top of the Pops magazine, looking all slippery and dolphin-like with his baby oil bod and his wet-look gel. But after a quick Google while writing this week’s newsletter, I realised he was a one hit wonder… stuff from back then can seem so amplified today. It was the era when The Spice Girls dominated the world, but they had just two albums and were only together for four years. Time seemed infinite.

Decades later, here I am listening to Peter Andre on my long run. I grew up without cable tv or MTV, but that one song made Peter Andre cut through. The glory days before the internet, when Top of the Pops was a measure of success. Culture is so quick to move on from things now.

Spotify’s artist radio playlists are excellent for rediscovering those nineties and noughties anthems you’d thought you’d forgotten. JLS radio soundtracked my London marathon block last year — for the unfamiliar international reader, they’re the British Backstreet Boys. Everybody in Love and Beat Again both ended up being on my top Spotify Unwrapped last year. Sometimes, I go for Girls Aloud radio. Others, Britney. Hanson’s Mmmbop is a sunny Sunday long run dream. Sometimes I enjoy Katie B or Dizzee Rascal.

For a short while, before a trip to Belfast, I ran to Irish pub tracks. (I was, as a child, quite obsessed with Michael Flatley.) Six the Musical, about the six wives who married Henry VIII and which riffs on Beyoncé and Adele, is a great 8k (40ish min) album — think of it like a shorter Hamilton with witty, feminist lyrics. The final track, Six, is a personal fave. Whatever gets me going is fine by me.

Lots of people have their own workout songs or warm-up anthems. Each is so personal, sometimes profound and generally can be quite primal. Sometimes it’s the lyrics that speak to us; sometimes it’s a memory or a mood. Sometimes just one song is enough to snap us out of a funk. A bad run or a bad workout can be saved through a good tune. There are purists who go sans headphones, but I spend my working life tuned into my own thoughts. Writing is a very insular exercise. The last thing I need during actual exercise is silence.

Music is powerful and performative. Boxers have their anthems as they enter the ring. Football supporters in England have It’s Coming Home. The men’s team hasn’t brought it home for decades, but that song renews hope for every match.

Often, the only hope that’s needed is being able to get through a single workout. Algorithms feed us. Peter Andre Radio wound up serving me MVP’s Roc Ya Body — also a banger. It reminded me of the Friday nights I’d spend dancing under bright lights at Rowans, London’s if-you-know bowling alley/club, which has a dancehall DJ on the weekends. You can even get curly fries delivered to the dance floor. It was a fun, silly time.

Playlists are a chance to indulge in all the former versions of ourselves. Music is transportive and can put us in an entirely different headspace. Workout music is a particular category for me, and pop and dance works best. In life, I’m usually listening to motown type stuff from the 60s and 70s, plus Classic FM, jazz, Simon and Garfunkel, Hermanos Gutiérrez or podcasts; my weekday mornings are soundtracked with BBC Breakfast. Why would I want to workout to any of those?

Sometimes music is environmental. On a recent trip to Dubai, where I was staying at Siro — a world best fitness hotel — I descended all 28 floors to go for a run outside. For anyone who hasn’t been, everyone drives. It’s the first place I’ve ever been where there were no pedestrians; there aren’t really pavements. I listened to Bicep’s Apricots on repeat as I ran around while the city got dark; the skyscrapers illuminated. It felt like I was in a parallel universe. Without music, it could have felt like any old run.

My gym playlist is old school dance music, with lyrics always; it’s so boring otherwise. My favourite gym song at the moment is Sugar Pie Honey Bunch by Strings and Four Tops. I love the original, but this one (found via Spotify) has a bit more oomph. When I go to track to run laps, I listen exclusively to nineties and noughties happy hardcore. Fly on the Wings of Love kinda vibes, but recently I’ve been enjoying Special D’s Come with Me. LOL.

Happy hardcore reminds me of being a 12-year old in my rural hometown going to a night called “Ibiza Mania”, where glowsticks were the must-carry accessory and one of the DJs worked at the McVities biscuit factory by day. I’m currently at home, and it’s been interesting what music I’ve been gravitating towards in the few days I’ve been here.

Coming home can make me feel very out of routine, but it’s also a chance to reconnect with my childhood self; the one that trained in dance 4-5 times a week for 12 years (tap, ballet and modern!) and loved pink. After moving to London, I dyed my naturally blonde hair brown in a bid to be taken seriously. According to popular culture of the nineties and noughties, brunettes were the clever ones and blondes were dumb and shallow. So brown I went; navy and black I wore. In all honesty, I lost myself.

Taking up running helped me reconnect. I returned to my natural blonde, and I started wearing colour again. A hot pink pair of Nike running shoes are my current favourites; I have so many pairs of pink socks, and a pink cap. In running, I wear lilac, red, baby blue, jade green, orange, etc — I wouldn’t wear all those normally. Sport has given me permission to indulge in bright, girly colours in a way that feels really liberating.

During the London marathon last year, my 41k split was much faster than all the others. I remembered that, just past Big Ben, Barbie Dreams came on my playlist. I was wearing my bright pink cap, and bright pink socks. I remember thinking to myself at the time that 6-year old me would be buzzing. I’ve been listening to the Barbie soundtrack in the gym this week.

Sometimes it’s not the masterpieces of music that stay with you, but the moments a song can amplify. So lean in, be cringe, stay true. Who cares.

Now tell me, what’s the best-worst song that you workout to? Let me know in the comments. Maybe I’ll create a playlist!

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