The locker, warm-up, and pregame playlist are considered by many sports teams to be essential to good vibes and performance. So much, in fact, that a whole genre – arena rock – was created just for that purpose. Music can curate any emotion, but when it comes to the world of athleticism, hype is key, and these days it seems that just about any genre can hype a team up. And any genre means any genre, whether it’s an EDM remix of Wonderwall at a Seattle Kraken game or bossa nova jazz.
Frisbee
Ultimate Frisbee’s playlist clocks in at 2 hours and 32 minutes and hosts 40 songs. Of those 40, the most featured artists are Rihanna and T-Pain. It is primarily dance-pop.
The frisbee team’s playlist carries the energy of a 2000s frat boy with a bit of a sweet side. Three significant standouts are the synthesizer-heavy metal song “Stains of Time” from the Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance original soundtrack, the bro-country “Country Girl (Shake It for Me) by Luke Bryan, and the Masayoshi Takanaka’s eclectic fusion of samba and jazz in “BELEZA PULA.” According to Becky Johnston, a player on the ultimate frisbee team, the playlist was created for their playoff game against Roosevelt, which was the first time they had made playoffs in seven years.
Tennis
The tennis playlist is 56 minutes broken up between 15 songs. It is primarily pop but widely diverse. Pitbull and Jungle are the only repeated artists.
Tennis’ playlist is by far the most diverse playlist despite its size. Consisting of genres like rap, 2000’s pop, reggae, K-pop, and 3 minutes of high-pitched ringing. Some obvious standouts are “SLUT ME OUT” by NLE Choppa, the aptly named “Tennis Court” by Lorde, and ironically the only song on here that wouldn’t send mice running, “Rat Repellent” by Ultrasonic Pest Repeller. Overall the Tennis playlist has no consistency with no possible situations in which it could be used effectively.
Softball
Softball’s playlist totals 2 hours and 19 minutes with 39 songs. The playlist consists almost entirely of fast-paced rap and hip-hop. Most featured artists are Travis Scott, SZA, and Drake.
Softball’s playlist titled warm-ups seems to be perfect for just that. Stacked to the brim with fast-paced music sure to get blood pumping. While the playlist lacks much diversity in genre, its uniformity and consistency are what sets it apart from the other playlists on this list which have massive genre switches. The softball team’s playlist might not stand out much in the grand scheme of playlists, but it successfully achieves what it was made for.
Girl’s Basketball
The basketball playlist is 55 songs totaling 2 hours and 25 minutes. It is primarily hip-hop and its most replayed artists are Veeze and Tse Vic.
If this article were to be a contest rather than a summary, the Girl’s Basketball team would unfortunately automatically lose for using Apple Music. Overall the playlist is composed of medium-low energy trap beats that you could fall asleep to, but Babytron’s groovy “Work!” is one of the few exceptions to that rule. As a whole, the playlist had few standouts and is very uniformly trap. The basketball team’s center, Naima Joseph, claimed that music had a direct effect on performance: “90% of basketball is mental and the music impacts that.”
