The Ultimate Driving Music Playlist (According to Us)

For me the ultimate driving playlist is basically just a greatest hits of all the best songs from pretty much any racing game series (including NFS, GT, Forza, Burnout, Driver, GTA & GRID.
 
I was actually just going to start making a driving playlist for a few road trips coming up so this thread will give me a good starting point. Here are 5 of my favorites.

Steppenwolf
- Magic Carpet Ride (I've been hooked on this song since I first heard it in a NASCAR game in the early 00's)



Rush - Red Barchetta (Rush has a song for everything)



Red Fang - Wires (Seems like the tempo just fits perfectly with cruising)



Ennio Morricone - The Ecstasy of Gold (Epicness in song form, seems a great way to start any drive)



Kenny Loggins - Danger Zone (Self explanatory)

 
Just finished making my ultimate driving/racing playlist on Spotify, 120 songs total.



22-20's - Devil In Me
Adele - Rolling In The Deep
Airbourne - Blackjack
Airbourne - Girls In Black
Alex Metric - It Starts
Anberlin - We Owe This To Ourselves
Apollo 440 - Cold Rock The Mic (Instrumental Version)
Ash - Lose Control
Ash - Shark
Avenged Sevenfold - Almost Easy
Avenged Sevenfold - Blinded In Chains
Avicii - Feeling Good
Avicii - Levels
Band Of Skulls - You're Not Pretty But You've Got It Going On
Biffy Clyro - Mountains
Blues Sacareno - Bad Man
Bullet For My Valentine - Hand Of Blood
Celldweller - Shapeshifter (Ft. Styles Of Beyond)
CIRRUS - Back On A Mission
Clutch - Power Player
Courtney Barnett - Pedestrian At Best
Dead Sara - Weatherman
Deap Valley - Post Funk
Digitalism - Battlecry
Digitalism - Pogo
Disturbed - Decadence
DJ Spooky V Dave Lombardo - B-Side Wins Again
Dorothy - After Midnight
Dorothy - Raise Hell
Dorothy - Wildfire
Eagles Of Death Metal - I Only Want You
Element Eighty - Broken Promises
Ellie Goulding - Starry Eyed
Escape The Fate - Issues
Feeder - Feeling A Moment
Feeder - Just A Day (Alan Moulder Remix)
Feeder - Seven Days In The Sun
Feeder - Shatter
Fleetwood Mac - The Chain
Florence + The Machine - You've Got The Love
Freeland - Mind Killer
Garbage - As Heaven As Is Wide
George Harrison - Faster
Grand Theft Audio - Avarice
Grand Theft Audio - Dead Man Leaving
Guns 'n' Roses - Paradise City
Hard-Fi - Living For The Weekend
Heaven's Basement - I Am Electric
Hollywood Undead - Levitate
Infadels - Can't Get Enough
Jet - Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is
Jet - Rollover DJ
Jimmy Eat World - Action Needs An Audience
Jimmy Eat World - Nothing Wrong
Joe Satriani - Summer Song
Judas Preist - Freewheel Burning
Jungle - Busy Earnin'
Junkie XL - More (Rock Remix)
Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot
Kaiser Chiefs - Oh My God
Kaleo - No Good
Kaleo - Way Down We Go
Kasabian - Reason Is Treason
Kasabian - Underdog
Lorde - Everyone Wants To Rule The World
Lykke Li - Get Some
Metro Riots - Thee Small Faces
MGMT - Kids
Motley Crue - Kickstart My Heart
Muse - Sober (Saint US Mix)
My Chemical Romance - Planetary (GO!)
NERD - Rockstar (Jason Nevins Remix)
Nico Vega - Fury Oh Fury
Papa Roach - Getting Away With Murder
Papa Roach - Not Listening
Paramore - Misery Business
Peaches - Boys Wanna Be Her
Queen - Don't Stop Me Now
Queens Of The Stone Age - In My Head
Queens Of The Stone Age - Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret
RDGLDGRN - Lootin' In London
Rise Against - Help Is On The Way
Rob Zombie - Two Lane Blacktop
Sheryl Crowe - Real Gone
Sigma - Changing (Ft. Paloma Faith)
Skindred - Nobody
Sky Parade - I Should Be Coming Up (But I Keep Falling Down)
Span - Don't Think The Way That They Do
Spiderbait - Live In A Box
Stone Temple Pilots - Take A Load Off
The Black Keys - Strange Times
The Bravery - Swollen Summer
The Bronx - Notice Of Eviction
The Cardigans - My Favourite Game
The Chemical Brothers - Galvanize
The Clash - Should I Stay Or Should I Go
The Crystal Method - Born Too Slow
The Dead Weather - Treat Me Like Your Mother
The Dirtbombs - Chains Of Love
The Eighties B-Line Disaster - Psychosis Safari
The Heavy - How You Like Me Now
The Horrors - Draw Japan
The Rapture - No Sex For Ben
The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - Face Down
The Script - Hall of Fame (Ft. will.i.am)
The Subways - Rock & Roll Queen
The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army
Thirty Seconds To Mars - Night Of The Hunter
Two Door Cinema Club - Undercover Martyn
Two Fingers - Sweden
Van Halen - Panama
We Are Wolves - Fight And Kiss
Wolfmother - Dimension
Wolfmother - Woman
X-Ray Sun - Animalised
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Kiss Kiss
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Y Control
ZZ Top - La Grange
 
Just finished making my ultimate driving/racing playlist on Spotify, 120 songs total.



22-20's - Devil In Me
Adele - Rolling In The Deep
Airbourne - Blackjack
Airbourne - Girls In Black
Alex Metric - It Starts
Anberlin - We Owe This To Ourselves
Apollo 440 - Cold Rock The Mic (Instrumental Version)
Ash - Lose Control
Ash - Shark
Avenged Sevenfold - Almost Easy
Avenged Sevenfold - Blinded In Chains
Avicii - Feeling Good
Avicii - Levels
Band Of Skulls - You're Not Pretty But You've Got It Going On
Biffy Clyro - Mountains
Blues Sacareno - Bad Man
Bullet For My Valentine - Hand Of Blood
Celldweller - Shapeshifter (Ft. Styles Of Beyond)
CIRRUS - Back On A Mission
Clutch - Power Player
Courtney Barnett - Pedestrian At Best
Dead Sara - Weatherman
Deap Valley - Post Funk
Digitalism - Battlecry
Digitalism - Pogo
Disturbed - Decadence
DJ Spooky V Dave Lombardo - B-Side Wins Again
Dorothy - After Midnight
Dorothy - Raise Hell
Dorothy - Wildfire
Eagles Of Death Metal - I Only Want You
Element Eighty - Broken Promises
Ellie Goulding - Starry Eyed
Escape The Fate - Issues
Feeder - Feeling A Moment
Feeder - Just A Day (Alan Moulder Remix)
Feeder - Seven Days In The Sun
Feeder - Shatter
Fleetwood Mac - The Chain
Florence + The Machine - You've Got The Love
Freeland - Mind Killer
Garbage - As Heaven As Is Wide
George Harrison - Faster
Grand Theft Audio - Avarice
Grand Theft Audio - Dead Man Leaving
Guns 'n' Roses - Paradise City
Hard-Fi - Living For The Weekend
Heaven's Basement - I Am Electric
Hollywood Undead - Levitate
Infadels - Can't Get Enough
Jet - Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is
Jet - Rollover DJ
Jimmy Eat World - Action Needs An Audience
Jimmy Eat World - Nothing Wrong
Joe Satriani - Summer Song
Judas Preist - Freewheel Burning
Jungle - Busy Earnin'
Junkie XL - More (Rock Remix)
Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot
Kaiser Chiefs - Oh My God
Kaleo - No Good
Kaleo - Way Down We Go
Kasabian - Reason Is Treason
Kasabian - Underdog
Lorde - Everyone Wants To Rule The World
Lykke Li - Get Some
Metro Riots - Thee Small Faces
MGMT - Kids
Motley Crue - Kickstart My Heart
Muse - Sober (Saint US Mix)
My Chemical Romance - Planetary (GO!)
NERD - Rockstar (Jason Nevins Remix)
Nico Vega - Fury Oh Fury
Papa Roach - Getting Away With Murder
Papa Roach - Not Listening
Paramore - Misery Business
Peaches - Boys Wanna Be Her
Queen - Don't Stop Me Now
Queens Of The Stone Age - In My Head
Queens Of The Stone Age - Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret
RDGLDGRN - Lootin' In London
Rise Against - Help Is On The Way
Rob Zombie - Two Lane Blacktop
Sheryl Crowe - Real Gone
Sigma - Changing (Ft. Paloma Faith)
Skindred - Nobody
Sky Parade - I Should Be Coming Up (But I Keep Falling Down)
Span - Don't Think The Way That They Do
Spiderbait - Live In A Box
Stone Temple Pilots - Take A Load Off
The Black Keys - Strange Times
The Bravery - Swollen Summer
The Bronx - Notice Of Eviction
The Cardigans - My Favourite Game
The Chemical Brothers - Galvanize
The Clash - Should I Stay Or Should I Go
The Crystal Method - Born Too Slow
The Dead Weather - Treat Me Like Your Mother
The Dirtbombs - Chains Of Love
The Eighties B-Line Disaster - Psychosis Safari
The Heavy - How You Like Me Now
The Horrors - Draw Japan
The Rapture - No Sex For Ben
The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - Face Down
The Script - Hall of Fame (Ft. will.i.am)
The Subways - Rock & Roll Queen
The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army
Thirty Seconds To Mars - Night Of The Hunter
Two Door Cinema Club - Undercover Martyn
Two Fingers - Sweden
Van Halen - Panama
We Are Wolves - Fight And Kiss
Wolfmother - Dimension
Wolfmother - Woman
X-Ray Sun - Animalised
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Kiss Kiss
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Y Control
ZZ Top - La Grange


Nice mix of songs in there combined with previous songs that used to be in gt.
 
A few I like:

DAY/TRIP - generally I like 'dad rock' for road trips. Tom Petty, Rod Stewart & War on Drugs are emblematic of this -- steady, encouraging:



NIGHT/CRUISE - moody, textural, slow, electronic. I always imagine the street lights flashing by...:



DUSK/DAWN - music that builds and creates a narrative almost to reflect the changing conditions:
 
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Here is the first song, but you can listen to the whole album & call me in the morning. Also, it's explicit.

 
In my opinion, Drum and Bass is the best genre for racing games, or even gaming in general!


When I'm racing and want to keep my concentration up, fast paced electronic drum 'n bass does the job most of the time.

A truly promising band to check out if you haven't heard about them is, Noisia or their logo NOISIΛ (VISION if turned upside down) ... even if you never heard of the band, I'm 99% sure you've heard some of their music before in other videogames (they exclusively made the soundtrack for DMC: Devil May Cry [2013] and other games also feature some of their tracks but not exclusively), movies or even commercials!
I recommend everyone to try listening to some tracks from the albums "Split the Atom" & "Outer Edges" furthermore they make lots of collaboration songs within the drum & bass genre that feature them and other artists and are worth checking out if you're into drum and bass.

Another one of my favorite bands is Pendulum, also mostly DnB.
I barely find any other bands/artists that make albums with only great songs, but I can however recommend the Drum and Bass collection albums from "UKF Drum n Bass" those started in 2008 I think, and a 2018 edition will launch in december.
Other very interesting subgenres of drum and bass are Neurofunk and Techstep.
 
Some good ones already listed:

Ministry - N.W.O. #1
No one mentioned The Cult? She Sells Sanctuary, #2 Fire Woman #2b, Sun King #2c
Van Halen - Panama #3
Bush - Everything Zen #4
Rush - Red Barchetta #5 and pretty much anything else by Rush
Ted Nugent - Stranglehold
Kenny Wayne Shepherd - Blue on Black
Eric Johnson - Cliffs of Dover
Metallica/Megadeth/Iron Maiden on random track selection
 
Ah, driving music. The thing I love the idea of, but barely ever do. But with that not in mind, here are small few of my favourite driving songs! Yeeah!
  • Rush - Red Barchetta - I mean, the title is referencing a Ferrari 166 MM! How could it not be perfect for driving?
  • Judas Priest - Reckless - This song was meant to be in Top Gun, but the band declined because they thought the film would flop... Heh...
  • Feeder - Just a Day - Gran Turismo 3 was where my love for cars was confirmed, until that point it was only peripheral. And this song is what I associate with it.
  • The Offspring - Can't Repeat - The Offspring in general make great driving music. This is another song based on nostalgia, I just remember hearing this a few times in the car as a kid, and for whatever reason it stuck with me another 10 years before I looked it up on Youtube.
  • Edguy - Breathe - I associate this song with night racing at the Nordschleife in Gran Turismo 5, which is one of my favourite gaming memories.
A part of me is telling me to list more songs, but that part of my mind also thinks that people care about things like my view on industrialism, or modern social science.
 
I've always loved making custom playlists for my racing games; I even have one for Euro Truck Simulator 2 that is 15 hours long and only filled with french stuff. But I've always made those lists based on a mindset for a particular game. So while my Burnout Paradise playlist is built around straight-up noise and stress, my GT Sport list is mostly lean, clean synthpop and dance music.

Aphex Twin - Come to Daddy (Pappy Mix)
Blackmail - Bois de Vincennes
Bloc Party - Mercury
The Chemical Brothers - Horse Power
Crystal Castles - xxzxcuzx Me
Daft Punk - Steam Machine
Deafheaven - Dream House
Factory Floor - A Wooden Box
La Femme - Tatiana
Franz Ferdinand - This Fffire (Rich Costey Re-record)
**** Buttons - Brainfreeze
The Future Sound of London - We Have Explosive (Herd Killing)
The Futureheads - Help Us Out
Galaxie - Diesel 2
Grand Blanc - Belleville
HEALTH - Stonefist
Holy **** - Chains
Japandroids - Young Hearts Spark Fire
LCD Soundsystem - Movement
Lightning Bolt - Dream Genie
Savages - Surrender
Sonic Youth - The Sprawl
The Sonics - Have Love Will Travel
South Central - Golden Dawn
Suicide - Wild In Blue
Titus Andronicus - Titus Andronicus
TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me
Two Fingers - Let's Fight
The Velvet Underground - Sister Ray
VICTIME - Tout est de ma faute
Visco Space - Visco Space Saves the World Part 3
Wavves - Idiot

Abecedarians - Come Out
Alter Ego - Rocker (Tuff City Kids Rocky Mix)
Annie - Greatest Hit
Bleu Toucan - Hanoï Café
Charlotte Gainsbourg - Deadly Valentine
Classixx - All You're Waiting For (feat. Nancy Whang)
Le Couleur - L'amour le jour
Cut Copy - Need You Now
Daft Punk - Musique
Essaie Pas - Carcajou 3
Factory Floor - Dial Me In
La Femme - Sphynx
Flavien Berger & Julia Lanoe - À reculons
Friendly Fires - Show Me Lights
Grace - Not Over Yet (Perfecto Mix)
Holy Ghost! - Bridge and Tunnel
Hot Chip - Huarache Lights
Junior Boys - Over It
Kano - Ikeya-Seki
Liquid Liquid - Cavern
M83 - Midnight City
Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy
New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle
Night Drive - Sea of Light
Para One - When the Night (Instrumental)
Phoenix - 1901
Pulp - Glory Days
Röyksopp - Clean Sweep
Simian Mobile Disco - Cruel Intentions
Sparks - La dolce vita
Suicide - Keep Your Dreams
Tame Impala - Let It Happen
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero
Yellow Magic Orchestra - Wild Ambitions
808 State - In Yer Face (Bicep Remix)
 
Abecedarians - Come Out
Alter Ego - Rocker (Tuff City Kids Rocky Mix)
Annie - Greatest Hit
Bleu Toucan - Hanoï Café
Charlotte Gainsbourg - Deadly Valentine
Classixx - All You're Waiting For (feat. Nancy Whang)
Le Couleur - L'amour le jour
Cut Copy - Need You Now
Daft Punk - Musique
Essaie Pas - Carcajou 3
Factory Floor - Dial Me In
La Femme - Sphynx
Flavien Berger & Julia Lanoe - À reculons
Friendly Fires - Show Me Lights
Grace - Not Over Yet (Perfecto Mix)
Holy Ghost! - Bridge and Tunnel
Hot Chip - Huarache Lights
Junior Boys - Over It
Kano - Ikeya-Seki
Liquid Liquid - Cavern
M83 - Midnight City
Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy
New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle
Night Drive - Sea of Light
Para One - When the Night (Instrumental)
Phoenix - 1901
Pulp - Glory Days
Röyksopp - Clean Sweep
Simian Mobile Disco - Cruel Intentions
Sparks - La dolce vita
Suicide - Keep Your Dreams
Tame Impala - Let It Happen
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero
Yellow Magic Orchestra - Wild Ambitions
808 State - In Yer Face (Bicep Remix)
I approve of much of this, and it's kind of a trip seeing Abecedarians mentioned, having had "Soil" stuck in my head for a good chunk of the day. Also, Pulp and Charlotte? Nice. How about a combination of the two?
 
Even with the bump, no one's picking up on what a hooj choon Swamp Thing was... Though I actually preferred Texas Cowboys. The more obscure yet more obvious choice might have been the album track from the Grid, called Rollercoaster... which IIRC was the title song for a very short lived TV motoring show.. that I want to say was called "Drive", though the only time I ever recall seeing this programme, they were talking about "flair-craft" wing in ground effect planes and the ekranoplan, if it makes this post any more random, the global communication yellow submarine re-take on the "Rollercoaster" song, prompted me to start writing a Blade Runner-esque story about people being manufactured for purpose, and the entire premise of the story was set around the visuals that would accompany the aforementioned version of the song, this was when I was still in college... before the weight of the world crushed my soul.. and when Banjo was the way to the top of the dance charts.
 
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