Kanye's 42 Best Songs to Run To


I'd guess that for most people, huge consequential life events like births, deaths, marriages, and divorces mark time--as in, "I remember that that event happened in 1997, because that's the year that I got married." For whatever reason, for me, sports--both participated and spectated--are what create that intensity of feeling that's sufficient to mark time.

For example, I know that Kanye West's third album, Graduation, dropped on a Tuesday in September 2007 because my high school cross country team lost a dual meet to Christopher Dock Mennonite High School that day. We hadn't lost to another high school in our class size since 2001, and we got smoked that day. Like, two weeks into the season, and all hopes of our seventh straight district championship were completely out the window. We were not good.

My best friend and I were co-captains that fall, and we did not talk to each other on the long bus ride home--one immutable law of time is that bus rides home after disappointing losses always feel roughly quintuple their actual length. We were fuming, each silently blaming the other. (I don't know where I got off blaming anyone else, as my summer of 70 mile weeks had translated into a zero percent improvement.)  After what felt like six hours of emoting about losing, we got off the bus, wordlessly got into one of our cars, drove to a book/music store that used to exist called Borders, and each bought a copy of Graduation.

I think about that day all the time.

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Whether or not today's Waves/Good Ass Job/So Help Me God/The Life of Pablo is any good, Kanye has given us a decade-plus of spectacular music. Here are forty-one of my favorites for your next few workouts.