David Byrne has revealed the music that helps him clear his head while cycling.
Byrne shared the 'Biking Playlist' last week as the latest instalment in his David Byrne Radio series. The playlist includes music he listens to while cycling during downtime during his Who Is the Sky tour.
The Talking Heads co-founder said all his bandmates have folding bicycles. “The whole band has folding bikes that we travel with,” he said in the notes for his latest radio show.
“If have an afternoon off I’ll often go for a ride to clear my head, and if I’m on my own and it’s a secure path or not a busy road… I’ll listen to this playlist."
The playlist, published on Spotify, includes a variety of pop music from artists such as Mitski, Harry Styles, Olivia Rodrigo, James Blake, Rosalía and Dry Cleaning. It also includes music from collaborator St Vincent and two songs by Paul McCartney.
He said of his selection: “What I think of as pop music is broadly defined. Some songs are, by consensus, mainstream, but even some of those often push at the edges. Others take the format, length and shape of pop songs, but to my ears they don’t sound anything like the ones considered more mainstream.
“That said, they’re all equal in my book, I don’t think of any of them as inside or outside – as I’ve seen those definitions change with plenty of exceptions that prove the rules are meant to be broken.”
Byrne is no stranger to cycling. The musician released The Bicycle Diaries in 2009. The book includes his impressions of cities around the world and is a catalyst for his thoughts on everything from architecture and urban design to politics and religion. In 2008, Byrne designed a series of nine bicycle racks for New York City.
