Five Great Traveling Albums

Last post we featured on “Hacking Your Commute” offered some sound advice on how to make a long commute easier.  One item that it mentioned was getting some good tunes on, which leads us to today’s post.

Although, musical taste obviously varies – people like to move along a bumpy road to different sounds – here is a collection that us here at Wayward Winos prefer to listen to on long rides and exciting adventures.

Modest Mouse – “The Moon & Antartcia”

We are sure this entire list could have been populated with five different Modest Mouse albums, but it was decided, for the sake of diversity, to include only one.  The obvious choice of their albums may have been “Good News For People Who Like Bad News”, with songs such as Float On, but “The Moon & Antarctica” has a certain exploration vibe to it.

The album starts of with “3^rd Planet” that includes lines like “The universe is shaped exactly like the Earth / If you go straight along enough, you’ll end up where you were”, it really can get the curiosity peaked for traveling that entire path to see what really is between here and … well…here.

The rest of the album follows suit. “A Different City” is a personally favorite when falling into a new concrete jungle.  It’s tempo, as compared to the rest of the album, offers a great contrast when going from countryside to an urban existence.

Supertramp – “Breakfast in America”

“Breakfast in America” gets a spot on the list for not only great rambling songs like “Goodbye Stranger” and “Take the Long Way Home”, but also because it’s iconic album art.

The famous diner waitress all done up to resemble the Statue of Liberty, New York City in the background created with the use of diner condiments, is such a unique representation of the United States from the eyes of British band.

Minus the Bear – “Menos El Oso”

Minus the Bear is another favorite for traveling, especially “Menos El Oso”.  Songs like “Pachuca Sunrise” and “Drilling” really get the heart pounding for stereotypical, backpacker moment.  The type that everyone who has travel extensively has had and brags about; that metaphysical, zen moment when everything is at peace.  The sound of the album is a bit fast, with some stellar use of electronic sounds, but it doesn’t have a feel of trepidation, but rather the intensity of discovering something new.

Boz Scaggs – Self-Titled

Songs like “I’ll Be Long Gone” and “Sweet Release” (the culmination of the album) are perfect rambling songs; songs that can just be played and lost in the moment.  The twelve-minute song, “Long Me A Dime” is, as my dad said, the treasure of this album.  It lets you drift in what’s going on outside of the window, whether of an apartment, or a bus bumping down a dirt road.

Iron & Wine – “The Shepard’s Dog”

The last album on this list is probably the most functional album.  If you have ever been stuck in a vehicle of over 24 hours, there is always a need to completely zone out and forget you are stuck in a vehicle for over 24 hours, perhaps take a nap.  This is where the voice of Samuel Beam comes in.  I’m not saying that his music is boring so sleep, but rather soothing.  It’s like therapy in your ears; everything outside sort of melts away.  And with songs like “Boy With A Coin”, the traveling atmosphere remains still and strong.

So, what would you add or remove from this list?  Let us know!

Wayward Winos is just over a year old now and we decided to get ourselves a bit of a birthday present – ladies and gentlemen, let us introduce the shiny new Wayward Winos page with it’s very own dot com!

We’d like to thank everyone for their support over the last year.  We have come along way from four months roaming around South America, to three months discovering Delmarva, now back to exploring our own back yards.

With our crispy clean new look, we are also reinstating our photo of the day and plan on expanding to a larger field of topics.  So, tell us what you think and how we can improve on what we are already doing by dropping us a comment at our new location at http://www.waywardwinos.com!