Creating a road trip soundtrack that makes everyone in the car happy must seem like the fool’s gold of the road trip treasure hunt. I’m here to tell you how I found the measure map. As Edgar Allen Poe might have did, it was hidden in plain sight.
The Great American Road Trip is part myth, part tradition, part legend. Woven into the fabric of our nation the road trip serves a multitude of purposes and can be inspired by any number of events. It can be as simple as a family vacation oras complex as setting off alone to redefine your life. It can be laid out and meticulously planned or can be just a spontaneous drive to wherever. A vision quest, a walkabout, or a holiday. Into the woods, city to city, or just rambling along. Seeing the sights instead of surfing the websites, following the band, or winning the girl. It doesn’t matter. The only constants are a motor vehicle, the road… and the road trip soundtrack.
Since Henry Ford made cars affordable in the early part of the last century the road trip has evolved to become an inextricable part of American culture. From Steinbeck to Kerouac literature has chronicled voyages across our great land. There are lists of the best road trips. Websites and computer algorithms devoted to creating the perfect route. Road trips for men. Road trips for women. The government built a National Park dedicated to the idea of the road trip. There is an entire genre of film devoted to it.
There’s no getting around it, getting in the car and going is as American as baseball, bald eagles, and apple pie—all of which can inspire a quick jaunt.
But there is one problem that has plagued anyone who has ever taken to the open road with family or friends: who gets to pick the music? The road trip soundtrack is often as important as the destination or the purpose. Bobby Troup and Chuck Berry helped usher in Rock and Roll on “Route 66” and ever since, the tunes have been inextricably linked to the journey.
So who decides what goes into the road trip playlist? Some say the driver. Others are adamant shotgun controls the road trip soundtrack. Some want to try and employ democracy. There is no consensus. The argument is made worse by the number of options available to the modern traveler. There’s the classic task of searching for radio stations as you cross the country. You can try finding the right Sirius channel and sticking with it. Creating your own road trip playlist ahead of time on stacks of CD’s or on an MP3 player is an option. Or everyone can fire up their own music player, pop in their headphones and act as their own DJ. But where’s the fun in that? What’s the point of bringing your friends along on your quest to see the Cadillac Ranch and the car from the movie the Blues Brothers all in one weekend if you’re not going to share in the camaraderie of the road trip soundtrack?
So in a world where everyone can bring ten thousand songs with them everywhere they go, what’s the solution to who gets to program the symphony of the ride? Almost by chance Michael and I stumbled upon the answer as we crisscrossed the Australian outback for The Palette Project. The solution to the road trip playlist puzzle is simple, almost elegant. Once revealed it will seem obvious, yet it is elusive. When employed it will save hours of arguing and possibly years of hurt feelings.
Voila! The road trip soundtrack solution
The simple solution is for one of the travelers to create a road trip playlist of songs from the other traveler’s collection of music. We stumbled onto this solution after a long afternoon of skipping through tracks on Michael’s phone as it was fed through the car’s sound system. That evening he suggested I go through his library and upload all the songs from his computer I liked to his phone and delete the ones I didn’t. This worked brilliantly. I was in control, but I had to stay within the parameters of Michael’s tastes. The process could easily be reversed with the opposite traveler choosing from their companion’s collection and just alternating devices. We didn’t do this on our trip because I still listen to most of my music on vinyl and dragging records through international customs didn’t seem feasible with all of our video gear. But the theory is sound. In the end, the road trip music on hand was almost perfect for both of us.
While this solution works best for a pair of friends with at least a partial overlap in musical tastes, the system can easily be adapted to any number of people by taking a round robin approach to the road trip soundtrack and each person getting to choose from one other passenger’s music, and rotating devices. It still may take some understanding amongst friends if there are outliers. Doesn’t everyone have that one friend that enjoys “Weird Al” Yankovic just a little too much? But even if that guy, and it’s always a guy with “Weird Al”, ends up in the car, have some charitable soul pick out a handful of the least offensive tracks and everyone sing along and laugh for a few minutes. It’ll be a great bonding moment. And that’s what the Great American Road Trip is all about—savoring the moments.
So grab your buddy’s phone, iPod, Zune, or whatever it is you kids use today, pick out your favorite tunes, throw a dart at a map, and head out on an adventure. It’s a great way to see the world, learn about your friends, and maybe even discover a new band. With the road trip songs taken care of, you can just enjoy the trip. The destination will take care of itself.
One last piece of advice. When it comes to the music you choose for your road trip playlist, if you have the cover image of the Best of Blondie in your iTunes, make sure you have the entire album downloaded. Nothing is as sad as clicking on that icon ready to select eight or nine songs and seeing only “Call Me” in the list. It’s just not fair to the person picking the songs. Please believe me. It’s. Just. Not. Fair.
What’s on your road trip playlist. Share your soundtrack below.
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