Whether in the hopes of spending a weekend in bed back home or planning a trip with friends to escape the stress of midterms, fall break often calls for one of the great American pastimes: road-tripping. And contrary to popular belief, the most important position in the car isn’t behind the wheel –– it’s controlling the aux. 

Long-form travel calls for long-form listening, and these projects cover all the bases for the mood swings travelers are sure to experience when spending hours on the freeway.

“American Football” by American Football

Lead vocalist and guitarist Mike Kinsella’s college-love-poems-turned-Midwest-emo-anthems are earnestly relatable no matter the season, but his tracks hit even harder with a cold bite in the outside air and a hot latte in the cup holder. 

For the solo-traveling introvert wanting to belt nasally sung choruses and maybe even shed a tear while channeling “teenage feelings,” look no further than the alternatively tuned guitars and lonesome trumpet that define American Football’s debut album. 

The album is best experienced early on in the trip, before any caffeine fully kicks in and long before any sleep attacks brought on by the sunset occur. Windshields can protect from chilly fall temperatures and sudden rain, but they can’t keep melancholy and bittersweet nostalgia away from the heart. 

“Love Is Overtaking Me” by Arthur Russell

If the car’s collective emotional capacity isn’t yet drained by American Football, Arthur Russell’s folksy and hallowed lyrics are sure to finish the job. 

It’s only right to partake in the American tradition of a road trip while listening to a singer-songwriter rip their heart out over an acoustic guitar. But don’t be misled by the country aesthetic –– behind these songs is Russell’s musical genius formed while studying classical cello and living in a Buddhist commune. 

The storytelling on tracks like “Goodbye Old Paint” and “What It’s Like” paints vivid pictures of those who explored the Western frontier in times past, providing a taste of life in the barren small towns people speed through while barely slowing down. Russell’s voice paired with some lone strings –– whether strummed or bowed –– is the perfect accompaniment for a car full of people whose only outside social interaction for the day might be flashing a thumbs-up to truckers passing by.  

“God’s Gonna Give You a Million Dollars” by Shallowater

There is no better way to describe this Texas slowcore trio than to say they’re from the desert –– which is exactly where their drawling compositions are meant to be heard. While physically stuck sitting shotgun, listeners are mentally turned into the protagonist of a Cormac McCarthy novel — traveling on horseback and cowboy camping under the stars. 

The verses on “Sadie” and “Ativan” are stripped-back and candid enough to appreciate the simplicity of a barren landscape before the choruses explode with shoegaze-like walls of distortion. 

The average track length on this project pushes seven minutes, allowing each song to feel like a journey in and of itself, even if only a few miles have elapsed on the GPS and the estimated time of arrival remains the same. 

“Machine Head” by Deep Purple

An album whose opening track is titled “Highway Star” is probably the most obvious addition to this list: a six-minute headbanger that provides an instant rush of adrenaline and will subconsciously push listeners’ gas pedal to the metal. 

After hopefully evading a speeding ticket, the rest of the tracklist is sure to have passengers drumming on the dashboard like they chugged a Red Bull at the last bathroom stop. Some hazy, fuzzed-out ’70s heavy metal is a well-needed break from some of the more intellectual and emotionally taxing records named in this list so far. 

Guitar solos and resonant organs fill out this high-tempo, no-frills tracklist. Activate autopilot and make sure there’s a full tank of gas before hitting play on this album.

“Everything Ecstatic” Four Tet

If mental fortitude is starting to wane and muscle soreness is beginning to set in, Four Tet’s progressive instrumental tracks are the perfect sonic ibuprofen to drown out any semblance of active thought. 

Powerful electronic beats anchor Kieran Hebden’s layers of intricate production, offering listeners copious rhythms and melodies to get lost in — a useful tool when trying to pass time while staring at the monotonous landscapes that surround most American interstates. 

The circling synths of “smile around the face” are too catchy to get sick of, and the distorted drum fills on “sun drums and soil” imbue life into each iteration of the droning track. The perfect jolt of energy needed to close out the trip comes via “sleep, eat food, have visions,” a fitting name for the delirious state induced by the last few hours of vigilantly staring at headlight-illuminated asphalt.