This Is What the Jalopnik Staff Listens to When We Drive

I’m one of those people who has different driving music for different occasions based on the time of year, weather, my mood, traffic, and the general ambiance of the day. If it’s a toasty summer day with shining sun and light traffic, that’s when I put on Van Halen’s entire discography. If it’s a rainy October day, I’m putting on Type O Negative. In the spring, there’s a good chance I’ll listen to Hole.

That’s not really picking one thing though, is it? My answer is cheating. So, I’m going to pick just one band: Alice in Chains.

My music taste hasn’t really evolved all that much in my lifetime. I’m still listening to the same things I listened to growing up — and Alice in Chains was a favorite of my dad, which means it became a favorite of mine. The Layne Staley era of the band reminds me of driving home from an autumn trip to the beach, where I’d stare out the windows and imagine creepy critters crawling through the corn fields. Now, pretty much any time I’m driving in the dark, I turn on Alice in Chains and sing along. It’s not quite as scary to me as it used to be, but the fond memories still run strong.

Like Elizabeth, I don’t really stick to one band or singer. Over the last year, my rotation’s been a lot of Zach Bryan and a surprising amount of Adeem the Artist. Now that there’s a new Lucero album, that one’s getting a lot of playtime. But if there’s one band I go back to more consistently than any other, including one of my longtime favorites American Aquarium, it’s the Turnpike Troubadours.

They’re just so damn good. They’re the kind of good that transcends genre. The songwriting is “why even bother trying when I’ll never be anywhere near as good as Evan Felker” fantastic. Every song actually makes you feel something. There isn’t a single track to skip on any album they’ve ever released. And as long as Felker is sober-ish that night, they’re also incredible live.

Whether you’re driving cross-country or just heading to the grocery store, all you really need is some Turnpike Troubadours. The band’s songs worm their way into your brain and get stuck there for days, if not weeks. Partly because of the lyrics and partly because they’re just so damn catchy. It’s literally perfect driving music.

I’ve been living in California for a decade now, but it’s a place that never stops being strange and beautiful, and every time I go out for a drive during Los Angeles’ unforgettable golden hour, I’m reminded of just how much I love it.

For the past few years, my soundtrack to those drives has often been the band Deafheaven. There’s something about their music that not only drips California from every pore but also resonates with me being behind the wheel.

The song that gets the most play from me during these drives is called “Glint” from Deafheaven’s 2018 record, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love. The 10-plus minute track is a journey all on its own, but the feeling that comes on at 9 minutes 23 seconds as I press my right foot all the way to the floor on an empty stretch of Angeles Crest is unforgettable.

It’s no secret that the sole reason for my longest and most memorable drives is music. Every epic road trip I’ve taken was to see some band or artist perform music in a far-off place. The further away, the better. I can’t always be driving to concerts, I guess. Not if I want to “be an adult” or “act my age and have a job,” according to family. I begrudgingly admit I can’t just point my car and go.

The next best thing to driving to a concert is driving in a concert, which is why I love to take off bright and early to Brownsville or any other place about an hour away on weekends; I’ll put on a live recording of Steven Wilson, Nils Frahm, or Porcupine Tree and crank it!

Live music is quite demanding when it comes to audio quality: the speakers in my car aren’t up to the task of overcoming road noise, or capturing the sense of a venue. But live music is always different in subtle ways compared to studio recordings, and the small changes or variations tickle my brain. Just listen to the jarring opening riffs of track two from the live album Arriving Somewhere… and hear how Wilson agonizes onstage, wailing “HAIR BLOWN IN AN OPEN CAR.” The acoustic guitar comes in, the notes decay and the crowd loses it. I feel I’m there every single time.

I’ll admit, I’ve spent the majority of the past six months listening to nothing except The Car by Arctic Monkeys and Midnights by Taylor Swift. Both perfect albums that can soundtrack any drive pretty well. But while I love both wholeheartedly, they aren’t my go-to driving music.

That honor instead belongs to musical legend David Bowie. Whether you need an anthem to soundtrack an epic adventure, like “Heroes;” a quieter moment for when you need time for yourself, like “Blackstar;” or something to lighten the mood on a never-ending highway, like “Let’s Dance,” Bowie has it all.

When it comes to the album of his that I’d pick to soundtrack my next road trip, there are simply too many to choose from. But, I will say, Diamond Dogs is great to take on a long trip thanks to hits like “Rebel Rebel”, and “Heroes” is a perfect album. So I’ll probably pop them on one after the other, and that’ll keep me entertained on the road for one hour, 19 minutes and 17 seconds. But, if my trip’s longer than that, you can bet that the Arctic Monkeys and Taylor Swift will be making an appearance as well.

At its core, Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood is a movie about dudes cruising around on a beautiful Southern California day. That’s why the songs that make up the movie’s soundtrack are perfect for driving, and there is just about a song for every single mood you could feel behind the wheel.

There’s fast stuff like “Hush,” chill music like “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”, and tons of songs right in between like “The Circle Game.” What makes it even better is the fact that interspersed between some of the songs are actual WKHJ promotions and DJ interludes that transport you right back to 1969 (I assume, since I was born 27 years after that).

You’re gonna get a warm and wonderful feeling as you cruise down the road (with your roof down, or else) and blast some Paul Revere and the Raiders music. If it’s good enough for Cliff Booth, Rick Dalton and the Manson Family, it’s good enough for me.

I heard we were doing a Staff Driving Music slideshow, and I was all ready to throw in my usual driving music suggestion — a drum and bass playlist called Exceeding the Posted Limit, which has lived up to its name by getting me twice ticketed for the infraction from which it draws its name. But then Andy showed up with a Tarantino soundtrack, and I realized that if Jalopnik’s resident zoomer wouldn’t stand up for the music of the youth, someone else would have to. So, dear reader, I bring you 100 gecs.

100 gecs is, essentially, musical ASMR. You listen to ​”xXXi_wud_nvrstøp_ÜXXx” and tell me you can’t feel the song scratching its way up your spine, like a heavily-rosined bow vibrating each vertebra. Dylan Brady and Laura Les bring a kind of texture to their music that’s usually reserved for sound design in film — not casual listening. Even other hyperpop artists like SOPHIE or pre-CRASH Charli XCX don’t quite have that degree of production.

But there’s more to the gecs than just lots of loud sounds. “mememe” and “stupid horse” are full-on ska tracks, “Torture Me” features the once-dominant Skrillex. Brady and Les have produced artists like The Neighbourhood, Dorian Electra, Left at London, Alice Longyu Gao, and Rico Nasty — their influences are broad.

By the time you’re reading this, 100 gecs’ sophomore album 10,000 gecs will have come out. Give it a listen. I’m willing to bet it’ll be a good time.

Here’s my thing: I don’t like bringing music along with me when I drive. I prefer the occasionally sublime spontaneity of terrestrial radio. Specifically, college radio, which is where you’ll hear the world’s worst hosts spinning some of the best shit on the airwaves. VMFM 91.7, the college radio station of Scranton’s Marywood University, is where I discovered The Drums, the jangly garage-surf band above. Fordham University’s WFUV in the Bronx introduced me to Beabadoobee. Somewhere in the Texas Panhandle, on a three-day cross-country blast to deliver a friend’s new car from San Francisco to Nashville, I encountered Kevin Morby’s relentless, joyfully fatalistic “This Is a Photograph,” on a fuzzy student-run station that stayed with me for 10 miles and faded with the sunset.

What is a road trip but a chance to break out of routine? We don’t get on the open highway to wallow in the familiar. We chase the radiator in hopes of finding something new and unexpected, something that cracks open a feeling we could never get at home on the couch.

Why stymy that by listening to the same crap you play all day at work?

Here’s a challenge: Next time you’re on a road trip, flip on the FM radio and scan around in the cheap seats, the stations between 88.5 and 100.5. I guarantee you’ll find some hopeless freshman, mumbling into the wrong microphone, struggling with the mixer, mispronouncing the next band name — and playing something that will send shivers up your scalp.

Not strictly from racing games, I suppose — Yuzo Koshiro’s “Go Straight” from Streets of Rage 2 is the finest piece of music ever recorded in the history of the world, and it just so happens to be excellent driving fodder. But if you know me at all it should not surprise you that my vibe is spinning “Your Vibe,” from the R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 soundtrack (these days it’s the 20th Anniversary remix). Maybe the theme song from Porsche Challenge on a misty morning, or Tokyo Xtreme Racer’s “Night Fly” under streetlamps on the turnpike, or Need For Speed’s “Romulus 3” when I’m feeling deeply introspective. Should the day ever come when I’m fortunate enough to get behind the wheel of a first-generation Subaru Impreza WRX, you can bet I’ll be pumping “Mr. 4WD” from Gran Turismo, the other official soundtrack of the boxer engine. There’s a racing game song for every occasion. 

Duh.

I’m all about being relaxed when I go on a long drive. With how quickly some people are angered on our country’s highways and how dangerous the roads are, you should do everything you can to stay calm and avoid vehicular altercations with other drivers. It’s something that I learned by example. During my childhood, I spent every Sunday afternoon in the back seat with my mom driving at [speed redacted] on the Long Island Expressway, heading back into New York City. The radio was always tuned into the calming and reassuring voice of Delilah on 106.7 Lite FM.

Now as an adult, indie pop is my go-to genre of music with Vérité being an artist that I tend always find my way back to. Her 2021 single “By Now” really exemplifies what I enjoy about her music. The track begins with a very atmospheric melody carried by her ethereal vocals. Then when she reaches the second verse, a bassy synth beat jumps in and it’s become a song that I could compulsively listen to repeatedly for the entire drive. When I’m behind the wheel, the reflective theme of “By Now” puts me in the mindset of “I’ll get there when I get there.”

I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m a big jazz/hip hop head. Even more so when those two genres are combined together to make music. And when I drive, I’m trying to chill out. I already have enough to deal with because of all the Southern California traffic I encounter on a daily basis. I don’t want anything that’s going to put me on edge. That’s why I listen to Alfa Mist’s Errors.

If you’re not sure who Alfa Mist is, you’re missing out. He’s a UK artist who combines hip-hop and jazz so well that it’s almost like art. The song Errors is from his album Antiphon. Each song on the album is based on a different deep conversation Alfa Mist had with his brother. Parts of the convo are played for about 30 seconds at the beginning of each track. The conversation on Errors is about how everyone’s perspective on selfishness is different. After that, the song delves into a chill 10-minute-long instrumental that’s absolutely perfect on long drives.

Easily one of the best rock albums of the past 25 years. Songs for the Deaf is more or less a concept album taking the listener on a drive cycling through different AM stations. Perfect for a car ride.

Honorable Mentions:

• Phantom Planet’s Self Titled third album - fun garage rock, no filler, only 35 minutes long.
• Tenet: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack - The movie might be a mess but the score is a banger and with the right sound system in your car it brings your drive up to a new level.

Chris Cornell’s passing in 2017 hit me hard. I was an early teen that dove headfirst into Soundgarden, then Audioslave was the soundtrack of my college years. His unparalleled vocals combined with killer guitar chords are a constant go-to if I am in for a long haul or a short trip down the road. The grunge/hard rock sound with philosophical undertones in the lyrics checks all the right boxes for me. From the awesome duet with Eddie Vedder in Temple of the Dog all the way to Rusted Chain and even the solo songs. I’ll take all of it. I even dig his more “mellow” stuff like the acoustic covers of “Patience” and “Billy Jean.”