A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

BODY LANGUAGE: Today's WSJ has a short article on finding workout music, which is a topic that has come up in some of our recent discussions about dance music. The article focuses upon a new free software product called "repacer", which "can change the pace of any song so that it will exactly match your preferred personal pace. This is done without changing the pitch of the song or damaging its quality." I plan to give it a try.

The article also notes that Nike has teamed up with various artists to make exercise playlists on iTunes. The Nike project is designed to promote the Nike+ shoe technology.

To me, workout songs need:

• to be in a major key,
• to be in 4:4 time (are there exceptions?),
• to have a fast pace, ideally one that increases as the song proceeds,
• to have an outstanding rhythm section,
• to have positive lyrics,
• to have a catchy chorus, and
• to have a powerful lead vocal.

I would love to learn what you love in this regard. I'd be especially interested in songs that inspire you to work out particularly fast. Russ suggested that we all post the 10 songs we most often listen to while exercising (including any embarrassing selections). I will do so in the comments.