Win For Monday: Your Afternoon Pump-Up Playlist Is Here

If you’re one of those people who wakes up smiling with the sun on Monday morning, immediately feels blissful and ready to take on the world, and happily gets dressed with the assistance of chipper cartoon birds, you can click away now. I can’t with you. Because for any reasonable human, this is what Monday morning should look like: begrudgingly dragging yourself into consciousness, having to completely re-learn how to perform your job / do basic self-maintenance like showering and picking out shoes, and more or less having to painstakingly chip away at the cement encasement around your will to live before anything resembling adult functioning can take place. Accomplishing this requires a near overdose of coffee, and at least one of the following songs for a perfectly timed, mid-Monday, mini dance party. If a 3-minute dance-off-the-sleepies interlude doesn’t get your mind right, then just sit back down and ponder whether or not you’re dead inside until happy hour gets here.

Evil – Interpol

I’m not gonna front like my intense love for this song doesn’t have a lot to do with its use in the first season of Grey’s Anatomy. Save the judgment, haters; there’s a good lesson here: if circumstances are getting out of hand and the situation looks beyond your limited control (like if your new roommate throws a huge party without asking you), your best option is to say “screw it”, grab the bottle of tequila and go dance on a table. Or something.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5nuGI1WIxY&w=584&h=315]

Roar – Katy Perry

I keep wanting to not like Katy Perry, but I keep getting happy feelings when I hear her songs. I think I’m giving up the fight.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CevxZvSJLk8&w=584&h=315]

Tightrope – Janelle Monaé

I live in Atlanta, so you should all be impressed with me that I don’t spend every minute of every day stalking Janelle Monaé.

Also, MONAÉ > BEYONCÉ. Yeah, I said it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwnefUaKCbc&w=584&h=315]

Ride a White Horse – Goldfrapp

“Dancing like you’re high on coke” is the new “dancing while actually high on coke”. #grownuplife

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFF8bubMc40&w=584&h=315]

Hotel Yorba – White Stripes

This song inspires less of a dance party and more of a “scream all the words at the top of your lungs until your throat dies” party, which is still makes for a really cathartic, energizing work break. And in case you’re keeping tabs, Jack White is still not my boyfriend. I’m working on it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZPEUyiNcjA&w=584&h=315]

Maneater – Hall & Oates

Presented without explanation. If anyone ever asks you to give a reason for turning on Hall & Oates, slap that trick in the mouth.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRYFKcMa_Ek&w=584&h=315]

Wannabe – Spice Girls

Don’t play. You love this so much. I’m literally talking to every single one of you.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJLIiF15wjQ&w=584&h=315]

Bombs Over Baghdad – OutKast

Most days, I strongly feel like if suddenly this was the only song I could ever listen to again, I would be more than fulfilled. These guys are human Prozac. (And no, I’m not intentionally putting multiple Atlanta artists on this list. I can’t help it if we’re just a lot funkier than the rest of the world.)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVyVIsvQoaE&w=584&h=315]

Last Nite – The Strokes

Remember when it was 2001 and Julian Casablancas entered our lives and we lost our shit? I was 14 and this song helped get my tender mind primed for angst-ridden years to come. Now, at 26, I just wanna bop around endlessly to this song, because ain’t nobody got time for angst anymore, but there’s always time for a dance break.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXaHy814cEA&w=584&h=315]

Get Busy – Sean Paul

Fuck it. FUCK IT. It’s been long enough that we can enjoy this again. If you turn this on at the peak of caffeine o’clock, not only will you immediately be overcome with a truly uncontrollable urge to shake your everything, you’ll spend the next three and a half minutes laughing about those weird days when Sean Paul somehow lead to a generation of 14-year-old white boys thinking they knew some shit about dancehall. Also, I suffer a significant amount of regret that I will never be able to dance like the girls in this video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcTARfiJvEs&w=584&h=315]

Also any James Brown or Prince, but that goes without saying.