We all have those few songs we stick towards the end of our running playlists for when we know we’ll be in dire need of a boost. Everyone’s got their personal preferences — whether it’s a good EDM song for you or an 80’s power ballad for your mom — but we wanted to get a more macro picture. We took a look at all the music runners have been pounding the pavement to in Runkeeper this last year to get a comprehensive look at what music makes you move the best. Warning: it’s about to get pretty weird in here.
Top 40 songs for speed*
- Livin’ la Vida Loca, Ricky Martin
- Praise You In This Storm, Casting Crowns
- Can’t Stop, Maroon 5
- Ironic, Alanis Morissette
- Contact, Daft Punk
- Times Like These, Foo Fighters
- Mr. Saxobeat — Radio Edit, Alexandra Stan
- He Is With Us, Love & The Outcome
- Your Love, The Outfield
- Fastest Girl In Town, Miranda Lambert
- Kiss You, One Direction
- Mylo Xyloto, Coldplay
- Paradise By the Dashboard Light, Meat Loaf
- New Love, Maroon 5
- Ridin’ Solo, Jason Derulo
- Jump, Rihanna
- Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It), Beyoncé
- It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ’N’ Roll), AC/DC
- Work It — Promo, Missy Elliott
- Lose Yourself, Eminem
- Mr. Brightside, The Killers
- Treasured Soul, Michael Calfan
- Moondance, Van Morrison
- Red Lights, Tiësto
- Jessie’s Girl, Rick Springfield
- Hot n Cold, Katy Perry
- She’s Alright, Stereophonics
- Let It Go, Idina Menzel
- Cups (Movie Version), Anna Kendrick
- Immigrant Song, Led Zeppelin
- She Looks So Perfect, 5 Seconds of Summer
- Skyfall, ADELE
- Play That Funky Music, Wild Cherry
- Good Vibrations (feat. Loleatta Holloway), Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch
- Snow (Hey Oh), Red Hot Chili Peppers
- Jungle — Remix, X Ambassadors
- Drop It Like This — Original Mix, TST
- Queen of Peace, Florence + The Machine
- Troublemaker (feat. Flo Rida), Olly Murs
- Lego House, Ed Sheeran
That’s right, runners’ speed on average increased the most when listening to “Livin’ La Vida Loca.” The good news here is that it seems no genre is excluded. Latin pop, Christian rock, country, rap, top 40, acoustic singer songwriters, Romanian vocalists (I had to look up Alexandra Stan), even Meat Loaf makes an appearance. Meat Loaf! The bad news is this is going to be a pretty jarring playlist to run to. Because I would do anything for a run, but I won’t do that.
Don’t worry, we’ve already built this playlist for you on Spotify.
*Songs appear on this Spotify playlist in descending order of those that had the greatest impact on runners’ speed.
If that mix is just a little toooo weird for you and you’d rather stick with a single speed-inducing artist for the course of your run, we’ve got just the answer for you. Hands down you should listen to….
That’s right, not only is the Japanese metal-pop girl band Babymetal taking the world by storm, they’re whipping feet into a fury. They were the artist where we observed the largest increase in speed as runners listened to them. Of course they’re not your only option, but if you really want to go faster, you better get comfortable with Japanese music, as bands Hi-Standard and 木村カエラ (Kaela Kimura) also hit the top 5.
Top 10 artists that will help you run faster
- BABYMETAL
- Hi-STANDARD
- Love & The Outcome
- Lucinda Williams
- 木村カエラ
- Blue Öyster Cult
- Drapht
- Lighthouse Family
- PANG!
- Ben Lee
But faster isn’t always better. Especially if you’re one of those people takes off way too soon and leaves nothing in the tank for those later miles. If you have a hard time remembering to pace yourself, consider some of these songs, which definitely have a slowing effect for Runkeeper runners.
Top 40 songs for people who really need to pace themselves**
- Elsa and Anna, Christophe Beck
- Send My Love (To Your New Lover), ADELE
- Save the World (Radio Mix), Swedish House Mafia
- Lights (Single Version), Ellie Goulding
- Starlight, Taylor Swift
- Material Girl, Madonna
- Ignorance, Paramore
- Creep, Radiohead
- White Blank Page, Mumford & Sons
- Starting Over, Mr.Children
- Powerful (feat. Ellie Goulding & Tarrus Riley), Major Lazer
- Gold, Imagine Dragons
- Smoke and Mirrors, Imagine Dragons
- ID — Ultra Music Festival Anthem, Kygo
- Come And Get It, John Newman
- Hit It, Deorro
- Thunderstruck, AC/DC
- Love Don’t Die, The Fray
- Show Me Love — EDX Remix / Radio Edit, Sam Feldt
- So F**kin’ Romantic, Matthew Koma
- Try, Colbie Caillat
- Close Your Eyes, Meghan Trainor
- Country Grammar (Hot…), Nelly
- Ingen annan rör mig som du, Norlie & KKV
- Harder Better Faster Stronger, Daft Punk
- Come Out and Play, The Offspring
- Welcome To Paradise, Green Day
- The Party (This Is How We Do It) [feat. Montell Jordan], Joe Stone
- Lift Your Head Weary Sinner (Chains), Crowder
- Life Is Worth Living, Justin Bieber
- F**kin’ Problems, A$AP Rocky
- Eye of the Needle, Sia
- One Call Away, Charlie Puth
- Lips of an Angel, Hinder
- Beautiful, Superfly
- Black Hole Sun, Soundgarden
- Lose Control (feat. Ciara & Fat Man Scoop), Missy Elliott
- Headlines, Drake
- I’ll Be Waiting, ADELE
- I Like Tuh, Carnage
Is anyone really shocked that Mumford & Sons puts you to sleep — err — slows you down? Yeah, me neither. And while “Let It Go” is sure to get your kids fired up (and places #28 on that speed list), the more subdued instrumental “Elsa and Anna” track from the Frozen soundtrack probably isn’t going to help you break any records.
Listen here:
**Songs appear here in order of those that have the most slowing effect on runners. Songs not available in the Spotify Playlist include: #2 “Send My Love (To Your New Lover),” ADELE; #5 “Starlight,” Taylor Swift, #10: “Starting Over,” Mr.Children, #35 “『Beautiful』,” Superfly.
False promises
A couple songs don’t quite do what you’d think. Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” appears to be associated with slower-than-average paces, for instance, as does Daft Punk’s “Harder Faster Better Stronger.” Daft will have to take consolation in the fact that their song “Contact” takes the No. 5 spot for songs that speed you up.
Mr. and Mrs. Popular
If you’re less worried about speed and more in need of running music inspiration, we’ve also taken a look at the artists and albums that get played the most on runs. Of course your perfect running soundtrack is going to vary from your college-aged cousin’s, so we had some fun slicing and dicing the results across different demographics.
Remember when Apple dramatically concluded their 2014 Apple Live event with the surprise announcement they’d be installing U2’s Songs of Innocencealbum on everyone’s phone? Well, for most people it’s stuck and made its way onto their running playlists. It’s unclear whether that’s intentional on the listener’s part or no, so that’s why we’ve bumped up these next few top 10 lists to 11 entries. I’m sure glad we did because it allowed Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’s The Heist to sneak in onto this one.
Top 11 most popular albums for running
- Songs of Innocence, U2
- 1989, Taylor Swift
- Title, Meghan Trainor
- Night Visions, Imagine Dragons
- x, Ed Sheeran
- V, Maroon 5
- Purpose, Justin Bieber
- PRISM , Katy Perry
- Native, OneRepublic
- TALKING IS HARD, WALK THE MOON
- The Heist, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
We also took a look at which artists get played the most frequently on runs, beyond any one particular album. You’ll definitely see some overlap between this list and the one above it, but also a few new faces.
Top 11 most popular artists for running
- U2
- Taylor Swift
- Avicii
- Maroon 5
- Katy Perry
- Coldplay
- Calvin Harris
- Eminem
- David Guetta
- Justin Bieber
- Rihanna
Of course U2 tops the charts again here, but if we exclude Songs of Innocencefrom the running, U2 drops from #1 all the way to #24. And U2 doesn’t rank high at all for runners 24 and under, even when Songs of Innocence is included. Looks like they know how to get things off their phone. Millennials (aka snake people), you so savvy. Speaking of those young people…
Here are the top 10 most popular artists for runners 24 & under
- Justin Bieber
- Avicii
- Taylor Swift
- The Weeknd
- Calvin Harris
- Drake
- One Direction
- Maroon 5
- Ed Sheeran
- David Guetta
Even though Bieber’s clearly trying to appeal to the older crowd with this latest album, the under 25 runners were the ones who kept him at the top of running playlists. And on the other end of the spectrum….
Top 11 most popular artists for runners 45 & older
- U2
- Adele
- Coldplay
- Maroon 5
- Queen
- Katy Perry
- Avicii
- Taylor Swift
- Rihanna
- P!nk
- The Beatles
Again, we’re not sure whether keeping that U2 album on their phones was intentional for this crowd or not, but just in case we went all the way to 11 so The Beatles could sneak in. Impressive, considering their music only hit streaming music services like Spotify in December.
Battle of the sexes: Madonna vs. Pitbull
Let’s kick off this last section with a fun trivia question.
Which of these artists is more popular with men than with women?
A. Pitbull
B. Madonna
C. Avicii
D. Pharrell Williams
ANSWER:
B) Madonna, the material girl herself!
Men are also more likely to run to Foo Fighters, AC/DC, Queen, Metallica, Eminem, Michael Jackson, and Kanye West. Women runners are a lot more likely to listen to P!nk, Meghan Trainor, Pitbull, One Direction, Mark Ronson, Pharrell Williams, and Kelly Clarkson.
Whew. That was fun. Knowledge is power, so we hope you we hope you feel the boost on your next run! Be sure to download Runkeeper if you haven’t yet. You can listen your Spotify and iTunes playlists directly through the app, and even get a recap at the end of your run to see you pace breakdown per song. We’d love to know how your individual report compares to these macro results. We’ll also be announcing big improvements to the music experience in Runkeeper very soon, so stay tuned!
Major thanks to Runkeeper’s senior data analyst Chris Drouin for digging into these numbers and offering excellent voiceover. Results are based on iTunes and Spotify music played through Runkeeper from 2015 to January 2016.
