I totally agree with this post but at least when I'm just working out on my own I can listen to my iPod. The worst is getting trapped in a spin class with crappy music (i.e., most of them.) I once got trapped in a class that involved a 20-minute remix of "Jenny from the Block." I almost walked out.

Is literally made for working out. It's great, too.

Traffic

Last Great Traffic Jam

New Orleans Jazz, like:

Big Sam's Funky Nation

Birth of a Nation

Trombone Shorty

Orleans & Claiborne

James Andrews Crescent City Allstars

People Get Ready Now

Tom Scott & the L.A. Express

Tom Cat

Tim Buckley

Greetings from L.A.

Medeski, Martin & Wood

Last Chance to Dance Trance

Eddie Palmieri

Molasses

Tito Puente

Exitos Eternos (and i can really jam to Oye Como Va)

David Bowie

Fame

Pink Floyd

Money

Tim Weisberg

Undercover (selections from)

Brian Hughes

Shaken, Not Stirred

Tina Turner

Private Dancer

Joe Jackson

Everything Gives You Cancer

When I listen to music I listen to music. When I work out I work out. I prefer to tune background noise out and concentrate on what I'm doing. In fact, if a quality song turns up in the gym's rotation I find it distracting.

NightHawks are great also --don't know how i forgot to include them in the previous post.

Honestly, I think I'd rather have the techno. I listen to a lot of Japanese pop music, because the tempo is 'up' and the lyrics don't distract me. I'm also fond of classic cheer songs from the 80's. "Hey Mickey!" is of course the ultimate example of this genre.

Everyone listens to their iPods or plugs headphones into the personal TV monitors on the elipticals and treadmills.

I wouldn't go to a gym that piped in techno. UGH.

So...I tend to be left to my own devices...the shuffle is the perfect tool for this...I don't own any techno, but I tend to fill the playlist w/ varied tempos and moods, which turns a run into a sort of circuit workout...I vary occordingly.

Nine Inch Nails works

the Arcade Fire

U2

Wilco

Kathleen Edwards

King Crimson

Genesis(w/Peter Gabriel) esp the Lamb Lies down...

Sugar...or Husker Du, or just Bob Mould

Modest Mouse

Suzanne Vega

Johnny Cash

Some songs that work very well, and tend to unleash an emotional response as well as an increase in workload and pace...etc...

'One Tree Hill' from The Joshua Tree

'JC Auto' from Beaster

'Wake Up' From Funeral

'Black Cadillacs' from Good News for People who like Bad News

99.9F by Suzanne Vega

'Idiot Wind' by Bob Dylan...blood on the tracks

I don't understand the concept of the constant 'one the one' house beat....it tends to annoy me to no end after just a minute....I tend to think that from the Gym perspective, they are simply trying to get people in and out as fast as possible....I hate treadmills, I hate gyms, I hate techno, so...for me, I equate my sunday run as my Church, and for me to go to a gym is akin to attending a Mega/non-denominational/watered down religious social gathering, rather than going to Mass.

I tend to really want upbeat music when I work out, so twee pop bands like Tullycraft get played a lot. "Electric Version" by The New Pornographers goes really well with staying upbeat, along with (maybe slightly more surprising) Guided By Voices and Belle and Sebastian. Really bombastic songs bother me for some reason when I'm exercising. I keep things nice and happy.

I don't know about other gyms, but at my gym crappy techno would be a mercy. At least it provides a baseline of minimally acceptable noise at an acceptable volume.

The mornings at my gym usually play out something like this:

0600: The grown ups all show up, and whoever gets to the stereo first puts on either NPR or classic rock at a reasonable volume.

0700: The second shift shows up, and this includes a large number of male wannabe corporate ninjas in their mid-20s who just walk over to the stereo in reception without so much as a by-your-leave and switch it to some station that plays what purports to be rock music these days, at TOP FREAKING VOLUME.

0701: Someone who is fully past puberty will turn the volume back down.

0702: The lunkheads turn the volume back up and holler obscenities because "woo, dude, I am pumped" or something. I'm not sure they actually have a reason.

0704: Nancy, a college librarian and grandmother of six who is one of the early shift regulars, rips the power cord out of the stereo and threatens to strangle the junior partners with it if they assault her eardrums one more time.

0706: Violence ensues, the frightened staff baricade themselves in the trainer's office.

0710: Total breakdown of society. Cats and dogs living together.

0720: Shower.

The crappy techno would be nice. It'd save on hurt feelings, sore eardrums and broken bones.

The world would be a better place if gyms played Coconut Monkeyrocket.

Also:

-- Messer Chups

-- The Atlantics (and other surf guitar bands, Dick Dale, etc.)

-- Yello ("Pumping Velvet," etc.)

-- Aphex Twin ("Digeridoo," many others)

-- The "Run Lola Run" soundtrack

-- Royksopp ("Alpha Male," others)

-- Front 242 ("Skin")

-- KMFDM

-- Tenpole Tudor ("Swords of a Thousand Men")

-- Orbital ("Lush," "The Box," etc.)

-- Jean-Jacques Perrey

-- Nortec Collective

-- The Avalanches

-- Can

-- Bill Laswell

-- Chemical Brothers

-- Ulrich Schnauss

-- Modeselektor ("Vote or Die")

-- Amon Tobin

-- The Aquabats

-- Madness / + any other good ska

-- Screaming Blue Messiahs ("Smash the Marketplace")

-- Shriekback ("Nemesis," etc.)

-- Flaming Lips ("Pompei Gottendammerung")

-- Kraftwerk ("Tour De France")

-- James Brown

-- George Clinton / Parliament

-- Frankie Smith ("Double Dutch Bus")

-- David Bowie / Iggy Pop / Roxy Music / and friends

-- anything on MOTOWN Records

-- any good old ATLANTIC R&B

-- 1940s swing from Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and friends

-- Xavier Cugat

-- The Bran Flakes

-- Tipsy

-- Ursula 1000

-- Martinibomb

-- Montefiori Cocktail

-- Plastic Bertrand ("Ca Plane Pour Moi")

-- Yes ("Roundabout," anything with a semi-consistent beat)

-- Talking Heads

-- Devo ("Beautiful World," "We Like Explosives," etc. NOT "Whip It")

-- Thompson Twins ("Love Lies Fierce" and other remixes)

-- The The

-- Public Image Limited

-- Barenaked Ladies

-- They Might Be Giants

-- Adam Ant / Bow Wow Wow

-- Siouxsie / Cocteau Twins / Cure / March Violets

-- Curve / Laika / Seefeel / The KLF / Saint Etienne

-- Grandaddy / Postal Service / Radiohead / Blur / Pulp

-- The Killers / Hot Hot Heat / Yeah Yeah Yeahs

-- The Go! Team

-- Any new-music offerings in the int'l ROUGH GUIDE series

-- 808 State / Eon / Prodigy / Moby / FSOL / Messiah

-- Yellow Magic Orchestra

-- "Night on Disco Mountain" / other good disco

-- the soundtrack to the Katamari Damacy video game

-- Fela Kuti

-- Japanese Pop: Halcali, Puffy, 5-6-7-8's, Pizzicato 5, etc.

-- Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys

-- Bollywood: from Asha Bhosle to "Bride & Prejudice"

-- Gary Numan / Ultravox / Nina Hagen / Propaganda

-- The Art of Noise

-- Kool & the Gang / Sly & the Family Stone / Stevie Wonder

-- Giorgio Moroder / Jean-Michel Jarre / Tangerine Dream

.....but most of all: COCONUT MONKEYROCKET