As an Entertainment Arts and Engineering student I constantly find myself working deep into the night on my games or crunching. This week especially I had to crunch from one PM to one AM multiple nights in a row. You, dear reader, might be wondering how I managed to spend 12 hours fiddling with a computer screen? The answer is four words. Dope. Ass. Crunching. Playlist. Keeping me motivated and energized.

The secret to a Dope Ass Crunching Playlist^tm is to strike a balance between songs that motivate and songs that will energizes as they play in the background whilst you work meticulously. Think of it as the Eminem vs. Chance the Rapper conflict. Eminem has been, is, and always will be my artist of choice for motivation. His raps are consistently about him kicking assand getting the respect he deserves. “Till I collapse I’m spilling these raps long as you feel ’em/Till the day that I drop you’ll never say that I’m not killing ’em/‘Cause when I am not, then I’ma stop penning ’em.” He is all about being the underdog, working hard, and winning, making him the perfect artist to start out a work session with. Hit the ground running and lose yourself in the music. But the emotional high of an Eminem song doesn’t go on forever, as the hours tick away something different is required, the motivation is there but no the groove.

Considered Chance the Rapper. I always put him in my Crunching Playlist, he also never raps about being the underdog and is nowhere near as aggressive as Eminem. But he is still great for working, his bars are fire, the beats are mellow but still have the energy to keep your pace, and who doesn’t want to listen to Chance’s voice while they work? He is perfect for mid crunch; his rhythms bring a groove that can be focused into working energy. For example, take the second half of the first verse of All We got “It was a dream, you could not mess with the Beam/This is like this many rings /You know what I mean? /This for the kids of the king of all kings /This is the holiest thing/This is the beat that played under the words /This is the sheep that ain’t like what it heard/This is officially first/This is the third.” Just reading that you can feel the groove bringing forth energy within, perfect for keeping a steady stream of work.

This dichotomy doesn’t exist only in rap either. It’s everywhere, Cold War Kids vs. Saint Motel, Devo Vs. Talking Heads, even Blink-182 Vs. Less than Jake. Whatever the genre I assure you there are certain bands that provide hard heavy hitting motivation, focusing on being the underdog and fighting you way back and bands that can just exude energy to maintain your work groove. Those bands make up any good crunching playlist. Of course, you still need to include Stan Bush’s classics The Touch and Dare from The Transformers: The Movie but I’ll explain that some other time.