Road Trip April 2017 - Partying

Seventy-eight tracks of April 2017 road-trip-party programming — the high-energy companion to the cruising tape, meant for the rest-stop-to-rest-stop stretches when the energy needed a refresh. Same trip, same friends, different mood. This is the tape that runs in the second leg, after lunch, when everyone’s loaded up on coffee and the driver swap has happened. The two-tape methodology is the rotation’s structural commitment to the road-trip context — the rest-stop-to-rest-stop stretches require different working-rotation aesthetic than the long-highway-stretches, and the playlist’s choice to split the rotation across two dedicated tapes is the methodological commitment.

Avicii anchors the EDM-pop crossover that ran through the year. The Avicii catalog is the rotation’s structural backbone for the EDM-pop crossover register — the artist’s catalog had reached the saturation level where every Top 40 station was playing two-to-three of his singles per hour, and the playlist honors the catalog’s role across the year-rotation. The placement is across the rotation rather than clustered, because the Avicii catalog’s distribution across the year was the structural anchor of the year’s EDM-pop crossover saturation pattern.

Mark Ronson with Bruno Mars “Uptown Funk” opens because that’s the song that signals to the car that the cruising-tape portion of the trip is over. The placement at first-track is the rotation’s structural commitment to the high-energy register — the song’s specific arrangement aesthetic is the universal-recognition moment that the car responds to within the first ten seconds, and the placement is doing the work of immediately establishing that the rotation respects the post-lunch energy requirements rather than committing to the cruising-tape’s lower-tempo register.

“The Nights” is the deliberate sequencing of the same artist into the second slot, because the Avicii two-song run is the structural anchor of any 2017-era road-trip rotation. The placement at second-track is the rotation’s structural commitment to the Avicii catalog — the two-song run is the methodological commitment to honoring the artist’s role in the year’s working-rotation, and the placement is doing the work of providing the rotation’s high-energy front-half block.

Outkast “Hey Ya!” lives in the front quarter because it’s the song that every road trip needs, regardless of year or context. The placement is the rotation’s structural commitment to the universal-recognition register — the Outkast cut is the road-trip-rotation working-utility’s universal-singalong moment, and the placement is doing the work of providing the rotation’s cross-decade bridge that the road-trip-rotation absolutely requires.

Black Eyed Peas “I Gotta Feeling” is the reliable singalong anchor. The placement is the rotation’s structural commitment to the late-aughts wedding-DJ register — the Black Eyed Peas catalog is the rotation’s working-utility for the universal-recognition singalong moments, and the placement is doing the work of providing the rotation’s mid-section structural lift that the long-form road-trip context absolutely requires.

Justin Timberlake “CAN’T STOP THE FEELING!” carries the slick-pop-radio core. The placement is the rotation’s structural commitment to the mid-2010s slick-pop register — the Timberlake catalog is the road-trip-rotation working-utility for the universal-recognition pop-radio moments, and the placement is doing the work of providing the rotation’s cross-decade bridge that the road-trip-rotation absolutely requires.

Smash Mouth “All Star” is the deliberate-camp inclusion that the road-trip canon demands. The placement is the rotation’s structural commitment to the deliberate-camp register — the Smash Mouth catalog is the road-trip-rotation working-utility for the unironic-singalong moments, and the placement is doing the work of providing the rotation’s deliberate-camp moment that the road-trip context absolutely requires.

Maroon 5 with Christina Aguilera “Moves Like Jagger” is the wildcard pull — a song that everyone in the car will sing despite themselves. The placement is the rotation’s structural commitment to the early-2010s pop-radio register — the Maroon 5 catalog is the road-trip-rotation working-utility for the universal-recognition pop-rock moments, and the placement is doing the work of providing the rotation’s cross-genre bridge that the road-trip-rotation absolutely requires.

LMFAO with Lauren Bennett and GoonRock “Party Rock Anthem” is the structural peak of the front-half, the song that resets the car’s energy to maximum. The placement is the rotation’s structural anchor of the early-2010s pop-EDM crossover register — the LMFAO catalog has been subject to substantial retrospective critical reassessment, and the playlist’s choice to honor the cut’s actual road-trip-rotation duty rather than the retrospective reassessment is the methodological commitment of the road-trip-tape series.

Built as the energy-management tool for the post-lunch stretch of the trip, when the cruising tape stops working and the actual party-music needs to take over. About four-and-a-half hours, which lined up almost exactly with the drive-time between the second and third overnight stops. The runtime is calibrated for the natural span of the post-lunch road-trip leg — four-and-a-half hours of driving from the lunch-stop to the third overnight, with the playlist doing the work of being the road’s continuous high-energy companion.

Holds up because road-trip rotation rules are universal: the post-lunch tape needs to be louder, dumber, and more committed than the morning tape, and this is what that commitment looks like. The cross-context durability is the structural feature that the road-trip-rotation’s working-DJ practice provides — the songs were sequenced for the post-lunch highway-listening context, and the working-utility extends to any sustained-high-energy listening context that the road-trip-rotation’s specific aesthetic can serve. Texted the link to the driver before lunch. By the time we hit the gas station, he had it queued.