"Untreated Adult ADHD" Playlist

Music To Help You Focus On The Music

When I told someone that Bird and I were about to make a twelve-hour-long drive to our next job, that person asked me, “how do you keep yourself awake for so long?” Staying awake is problematically easy when I am excited or anxious about the next day; but what scared me the most about driving long distances before I started doing it all the time, is maintaining focus. When you’re driving across the country, sometimes you see interesting places and cool scenery—and for a lot of it, you’re in the desert encroaching on the same mountain for twenty minutes, or in a forest at night where you can’t see shit for seven hours; which are the times you must be MOST attentive, because that’s when the animals decide to start running out in front of you.

When things get too samey, I tend to start filling in the blanks with my own thoughts instead of paying attention to the repetitive surroundings. If I listen to music I don’t know very well, but do enjoy, I might start paying too much attention to it; but on the other hand, if I listen to songs that I know too well, then I’ll totally go into my thoughts instead of paying attention. The most helpful thing to keep me engaged in driving is music to which it is difficult to stop paying attention.

There is a lot of really intense and aggressive music that probably could fit in this list (and plenty inside of it), but anything with too much anger and emotion behind it is a little dangerous to be driving with. I tend to favor music that is just very very fast-feeling—although this presents its own problems, if the music inspires you to start going WAY too far over the speed limit. (I seriously recommend using an app to set an upper limit on your speed that will sound an alarm when you hit it, if there is a speed you consider “too fast,” and you want to use this playlist for the same purpose I have.)

Since making this playlist and listening to it a few times, everything else feels kind of too slow. I only put one song per band in the list, and tried to pick something both representative of their most ADHD songwriting, and also which I personally enjoy listening to as a song regularly anyways. Generally the organization is built to maintain a constant sense of “hype” and attention-grabbing intensity, that shifts in volume and genre regularly enough so that it’s not as totally mind-numbing as listening to a whole album by some of these bands can be.

If you really love any of these songs, it’s a strong bet that you’ll enjoy the rest of the album, or at least more songs by the bands. I picked the best Unexpect, Polysics and The Number 12 Looks Like You songs that I know, while I am a fan of dozens of songs by The Mars Volta, Maximum the Hormone and Mindless Self Indulgence, which are similarly bonkers. There’s a definite leaning toward heavy guitar music in this playlist so far, which is the type of music that I know best, but I’d like to fill it out more with plenty of stuff from other genres that fits the bill (note hip-hop classics Imaginary Places by Busdriver, Wriggle by Clipping, and Hot Head by Death Grips on the list—I need a lot more like this). If you have any suggestions for music that you think would fit the bill, please send them my way! Those drives can get really, really long!!