{"id":1093,"date":"2016-03-23T10:46:34","date_gmt":"2016-03-23T18:46:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/?p=1093"},"modified":"2016-03-23T10:27:29","modified_gmt":"2016-03-23T18:27:29","slug":"road-trip-soundtrack-solutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/road-trip-soundtrack-solutions\/","title":{"rendered":"Road Trip Soundtrack solutions: Keeping The Whole Car Happy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Creating a road trip soundtrack that makes everyone in the car happy must seem like the fool\u2019s gold of the road trip treasure hunt. I\u2019m here to tell you how I found the measure map. As Edgar Allen Poe might have did, it was hidden in plain sight.<\/p>\n

\"Creating<\/a>
If you’re going to hit the road, creating a road trip soundtrack is the extra ingredient that makes the experience even better.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\u2019t matter. The only constants are a motor vehicle, the road\u2026 and the road trip soundtrack.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0lists<\/a>\u00a0of the\u00a0best road trips<\/a>.\u00a0Websites<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0computer algorithms<\/a>\u00a0devoted to creating the perfect route.\u00a0Road trips for men<\/a>.\u00a0Road trips for women<\/a>. The government built a\u00a0National Park<\/a>\u00a0dedicated to the idea of the road trip. There is an entire\u00a0genre of film<\/a>\u00a0devoted to it.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no getting around it, getting in the car and going is as American as\u00a0baseball<\/a>,\u00a0bald eagles<\/a>, and\u00a0apple pie<\/a>\u2014all of which can inspire a quick jaunt.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0music? 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 \u201cRoute 66<\/a>\u201d and ever since, the tunes \u00a0have been inextricably linked to the journey.<\/p>\n

So who decides what goes into the road trip playlist? Some say the driver. Others are adamant shotgun controls\u00a0the 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\u2019s the classic task of searching for radio stations as you cross the country. You can try\u00a0finding 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\u2019s the fun in that? What\u2019s the point of bringing your friends along on your quest to see the\u00a0Cadillac Ranch and the car from the movie the\u00a0Blues Brothers<\/em><\/a>\u00a0all in one weekend if you\u2019re not going to share in the camaraderie of the road trip soundtrack?<\/p>\n

So in a world where everyone can bring ten thousand songs with them everywhere they go, what\u2019s 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\u00a0The Palette Project<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n

Voila! The road trip soundtrack solution<\/h3>\n

The simple solution is for one of the travelers to create a road trip playlist of songs from the other traveler\u2019s collection of music. We stumbled onto this solution after a long afternoon of skipping through tracks on Michael\u2019s phone as it was fed through the car\u2019s 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\u2019t. This worked brilliantly. I was in control, but I had to stay within the parameters of Michael\u2019s tastes. The process could easily be reversed with the opposite traveler choosing from their companion\u2019s collection and just alternating devices. We didn\u2019t do this on our trip because I still listen to most of my music on vinyl and dragging records through international customs didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s music, and rotating devices. It still may take some understanding amongst friends if there are outliers. Doesn\u2019t everyone have that one friend that enjoys \u201cWeird Al\u201d Yankovic just a little too much? But even if that guy, and<\/del> it\u2019s always a guy with \u201cWeird Al\u201d, 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\u2019ll be a great bonding moment. And that\u2019s what the Great American Road Trip is all about\u2014savoring the moments.<\/p>\n

So grab your buddy\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.\u00a0The destination will take care of itself.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0Best of Blondie<\/em><\/a>\u00a0in 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 \u201cCall Me\u201d in the list. It\u2019s just not fair to the person picking the songs. Please believe me. It\u2019s. Just. Not. Fair.<\/p>\n

What’s on your road trip playlist. Share your\u00a0soundtrack below.<\/em><\/p>\n

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How to pack a suitcase. what to brig and what to leave behind.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Creating a road trip soundtrack that makes everyone in the car happy must seem like the fool\u2019s gold of the road trip treasure hunt. I\u2019m 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,15,17],"tags":[79,77,9,78],"class_list":["post-1093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-palette-project","category-travel","category-travel-tips","tag-road-trip-playlist","tag-road-trip-soundtrack","tag-travel","tag-travel-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Rim5-hD","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1093"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1100,"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093\/revisions\/1100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}