Today I am featuring a cover by a Canadian-American, singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer and actress. It is a rare day when I like a cover as well as the original,
but this 53 rpm climb at a total of 3:41 rocks. Seal’s “Crazy” mixed up by Alanis Morissette is great. She opens up her vocals and gives it a whole new feel. The
beat stays steady throughout and I use this 45 minutes into class when energy may be waning just a bit. It tends to pick class right up again.
Update: this was a very popular track and we reached the download limit much quicker than normal. In it's place please enjoy this remix of another great Seal song – Amazing
My job is getting so easy!
This week I want to thank Chuck Cali for suggesting the Free Friday Favorite. The FF for today is a great, Indie-Rock, 90 bpm, opening flat tune for your ride. This artist is quite new to the music scene, as his debut album was just released this July. Check out the first track, “Eyes Be Closed”, from artist Ernest Greene’s debut album Washed Out – With in and Without. At 3:25, it crescendos to a nice finish at 4:50. Here is the video. Enjoy and let me know if you have a suggestion for a free music Friday!
Here's a great remix of “Eyes Be Closed” for your Free track of the week 🙂
A shout of thanks to ICI/PRO member Sheila this week for suggesting the Free Friday Favorite. This is a great motivational climb at 65 rpm and 4:11. “My body tells me no, but I won’t quit cuz I want more”… I think that sums up many of us as we work away to achieve our fitness goals! Enjoy this relatively new (and young 20-22) group from California, Young the Giant.
The Song is “My Body”, from their self-titled CD, Young the Giant. Here is the original version:
And here's a fantastic remix of My Body for your Free Music Friday track of the week!
Are you looking for a motivating mid-tempo climb? Look no further! This week’s Friday Favorite, at around 72 rpm, is just the thing. This band is well known by all of us, but perhaps this song will be new to you. Still it is fun for our class, because everyone knows the distinguished voice of U2’s Bono. “The City of Blinding Lights”, from the album “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb”, gives us 1:15 before vocals come in, so I like to let my class know we are going to stay in the saddle for the first two minutes and establish our pedal speed at a load that keeps us at T1. I also let them know that at 2:00, (the music builds here, but our class doesn’t need to know that, they will just think we are awesome….) we will come out of the saddle for the rest of the song (3:45 – totaling 5:45), emphasizing that we will stay calm and competent between T1 and T2.
Here is the video:
And here is a remix of Vertigo for your free download this week I love Bono's line; Turn it up loud captain 🙂
This week’s Friday Favorite flat tune is from a Canadian singer-songwriter, producer and actress. The song was released in 2002 and it caught my ear then. I had completely forgotten about it, but heard it the other day and have incorporated it back into my class. The crickets in the first 30 seconds of the song give us time to cue our members to add the appropriate load (a lot), light up their HR monitors and go “out of their heads” to a relative happy place as they ride. It is perfect for that. The BPM is 60 90 RPM and we have 4:36 to crank it out. Here is Nelly Furtado and “Turn Out the Lights” from The Best of Nelly Furtado CD:
Update: Thanks to Moritz I see now that I'm trying to do too many of these ahead of time and had a “Blonde moment”. Yes, this track is at 90 RPM 🙁
