Happy New Year! Here is Spinning Music’s fourth annual list of the top 25 spinning tunes of the year. It was a great year for music with lots to choose from. Lady GaGa cleaned up this year with three entries, while Rihanna, David Guetta, and Flo Rida all scored two. Adam Levine of Maroon 5 was close behind with one song of his own and featured in another. Regular readers know that I have a huge soft spot for Canadian artists, and five of the artists on this year’s list hail (as I do) from Canada. You can find all 25 songs in one playlist on iTunes Ping – my handle there is Spinning Music.
It was a great year here at Spinning Music, too. Traffic mushroomed to 640,000 views this year (about 1,750 per day) and surpassed 1,000,000 all-time views over Labour Day weekend in September 2011. The blog accumulated another 250,000 views in the last four months of 2011 – more traffic than it attracted in 2008 and 2009 put together. 344 people now follow the blog, plus more than 1,000 who follow on Ping.
A huge thank you to everyone who visited or took the time to comment or ask a question or post a ride in 2011. You’ve helped me create a welcoming community of individuals from every continent except Antarctica, bonded by our passion for indoor cycling. I love hearing what you’re spinning to. I especially want to thank J.R. Atwood over at www.spinningmixes.wordpress.com and David McQuillen over at The Sufferfest for being the top two referring sites for this blog. I also want to give a big shout out to Judy, Dana, Ellis Rutherford, Carsten, and Lisa, the top five contributors to the blog for 2011. Thank you!
Big changes are afoot for Spinning Music in 2012. I am planning a move to a dedicated domain and have enlisted someone far more tech-savvy than me to spiff up the blog and really make it shine. The reader playlist page and Bike Cafe will become forums (no more crashes due to too many comments!), there will be more searchability, and (one of my 2012 resolutions) more posts. I’d like to hear from you. Is there anything else you’d like to see?
Here we go, the top 25 spinning tunes of 2011…
1. The Edge of Glory – Lady GaGa (was there ever any doubt that this is the best spinning song of the year? A gorgeous combo of climbing for the versus and sprinting for the choruses. Even when I think I’m utterly spent, I find a little more juice when I hear this song. GaGa wrote it about the death of her grandfather in 2010 and the late Clarence Clemons contributed a wonderful sax solo).
2. We Found Love (feat. Calvin Harris) – Rihanna (another great climbing song, this one had to grow on me but it deserves the #2 spot. I never tire of it).
3. Moves Like Jagger – Maroon 5 (more climbing. A great year for Levine. He had a huge hit with this song, a regular TV gig as a judge on The Voice, and featured on Stereo Hearts, another great tune).
4. Sweat (Snoop Dogg vs. David Guetta) – Snoop Dogg and David Guetta (still more climbing).
5. Sexy and I Know It – LMFAO (nobody had more fun in 2011 than the dudes in LMFAO and this is a perfect, light-hearted start for a spin class that also works for jumps).
6. Rolling in the Deep – Adele (2011 was Adele’s year, no question. Her album 21 went to #1 in 18 countries and created all sorts of records, including a match for one previously held by the Beatles. She’s uber-talented, but most of her music isn’t really suited for spinning. Rolling in the Deep works as an energetic warmup, thanks to the drumbeat. A confession: her other huge hit, Someone Like You, is gorgeous, but the lyrics veer too close to pathetic stalkery self-absorbtion for me to be able to enjoy it. I recogize I am in the minority on this one).
7. S&M – Rihanna (more climbing, with jumps at the chorus. This one also gets the prize for being the FM radio hit you least want your kids to sing along to).
8. Jet Lag (feat. Natasha Bedingfield) – Simple Plan (a sprinting song with sweet pop deliciousness, plus they hail from Montreal, Canada.).
9. Tonight Tonight – Hot Chelle Rae (jumps. Pure pop perfection).
10. Niton (The Reason) [Radio Edit] – Eric Prydz (I couldn’t get enough of this tempo drill; extended mixes take it as long as 8 minutes).
11. Every Teardrop is a Waterfall – Coldplay (another gorgeous climbing song from Coldplay, but it can’t top 2008’s Viva La Vida, which is one of my favourite spinning songs of all-time).
12. Marry the Night – Lady GaGa (despite being a huge GaGa fan, I only discovered this song recently. A great sprinting tune).
13. Born this Way – Lady GaGa (more sprints).
14. Give Me Everything (feat. Ne-Yo) – Pitbull (gorgeous cool down energy).
15. Brand New Chick – Anjulie (a versatile tune that works for climbing or jumps, and the artist even hails from my home town of Oakville, Ontario).
16. Mr. Saxobeat (Radio Edit) – Alexandra Stan (another versatile tune that works as a warm up, climb or tempo drill from Romanian artist Stan. The song has done well in Europe, Australia and North America).
17. Good Feeling – Flo Rida (great for climbing or jumps).
18. Where Them Girls At (feat. Nicki Minaj) – David Guetta, Flo Rida & Nicki Minaj (another climb).
19. Pumped Up Kicks – Foster the People (the underdog of the year. Dark, dark lyrics disguised in a catchy pop riff – like finding a razor blade in your cotton candy).
20. Beautiful People – Chris Brown (fantastic warm up energy).
21. Tonight (I’m Lovin’ You) [feat. Ludacris] – Enrique Iglesias (the original version is cocky… and filthy. A great song for jumps).
22. When We Stand Together – Nickelback (double-time jumps make this one of the toughest jumping songs I’ve ever used, plus the band hails from Alberta, Canada).
23. Haven’t Had Enough – Marianas Trench (a jumping song from this Vancouver, Canada band).
24. Invincible – Hedley (inspiring lyrics for this seated grind of a climb by British Columbia rockers, Hedley. Trivia: the lead singer was a contestant on Canadian Idol in 2004-05 but dropped out near the end).
25. Stereo Hearts (feat. Adam Levine) – Gym Class Heroes (a perfect cool down song).
Well, did I get it right? You might quibble with the order (I quibble with it myself – every time I pulled up this draft post, I moved something around). Did I leave out any of your favourites?
If you follow the charts there probably weren’t many surprises on this list – all of these songs did very well in 2011. For a more eclectic list of great spinning songs (not limited to songs that came out in 2011), check out ICI Pro Indoor Cycling 2.0‘s blog post here.
S p i n n i n g M u s i c 
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Thanks
Hey Angie, so glad you like the music here! I am just a cycling instructor and blogger. I don’t sell (or have the rights to) any of the music mentioned on the site. If you are on Spotify, you can access cycling playlists and music by some great American bloggers (like ChrisSpins – http://chrispins1.wordpress.com/). Alas, as iTunes killed Ping and Spotify has not yet come to Canada, folks who read my blog are limited to finding and downloading the songs on whichever music platform they prefer.
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god that is the worst playlist ive ever heard! chart chart and more chart shite! Get some sense of individualism and style! your classes must be boring, come to one of mine and ill show you how its done ….yawn 1/10 for the effort of the blog! GAGA is NOT for spinning!!!
Tom, you’ve thrown down the gauntlet. Come on back and post some of your favourite songs and your best ride over at the Reader Playlist page.
We’re gonna have to disagree on Gaga for cycling.
Jet Lag, Simple Plan, is one of my favorite sprinting songs… happy to see it’s on your list! :) Just discovered this blog and LOVE it! Thanks!
Thanks April – I love Jet Lag too.
Hi Cynthia, great site :-) I can’t figure out how to download the music. Where am I missing the link ;-) ???
Best Regards
Victor
Hi Victor, welcome. You’re not missing anything. This is just a blog where I post my playlists. I don’t have rights to sell the music. If you use iTunes, I do post my playlists on Ping which allows you to preview them and buy the whole list with a click. My Ping handle is Spinning Music (note: there is someone else on there using a similar name and selling workout music. That’s not me.)
Closer by Ne-Yo makes me feel like I could spin forever…
I came here to look for some new ideas. Boy these playlists are boring. Might as well just turn on the radio.
Hi B, welcome to the blog and thanks for commenting. I do lean towards top 40 in my classes as that’s what my riders like. Before I became a mom, I loved digging around to find the next big thing, before it was the next big thing. With a toddler though, my free time is pretty minimal. That said, if you dig a bit, especially on the Reader Playlist page, you’ll find lots of variety from spin instructors all over the world. I think the only thing I don’t have is an all-country playlist. C’mon back and post a few of your favourite rides or song suggestions. I am always looking for new stuff!
best site for Sufi Music downloding
Can you possible give me a 1 hour routine foe spin class including what to do using this songs? I’m doing a spin class tomorrow, just for fun, and I do not have an idea how to begin and ends that will get good workout result.
when it comes to music i really want to discover and to know something different.
Kindly visit this sites:CLUB MUSIC.tnx.
Agree with most of your Top 25 — although maybe there should be alternates (or honorable mentions)?
Do you have any songs in mind?
there are 4 pages for ‘cynthia’ and i don’t see you at the top or your picture there?
I LOVE your top 9, they are some of my absolute favourites from last year. I haven’t heard quite a few of the others so I’m busy youtubing them now, always so exciting to find new music!! Just wanted to say a big thank you for this site, it helped more than you can imagine last year and already this year has given me so much inspiration. I was looking at other spin websites yesterday, which require you to be a member to get access to most of their information, and it just reminded me how grateful I (and I’m sure the other million odd viewers will agree) am for you putting in so much time and effort for free. I know you do this blog for the love of it, but another website I visit which offers free workouts has the option to buy the author a “cup of coffee” – you can pay $1 or whatever by paypal if you liked their workout. Just an idea :)
Thanks Michelle! Glad you like the blog. Maybe one day I’ll add a buy-me-a-coffee widget. Most of the income I earn teaching spin goes straight to iTunes and the rest to Lululemon. Good thing I have another job.
how can you download the playlists?
Hi Jay,
Download iTunes and make sure you have the most recent version. On the left side, click on Ping. Then click on People and on the right side, you’ll see a bar to search by name. Put in Spinning Music. I should be the first result that comes up. Click on my name and you’ll see the playlists I’ve posted. The first one is the Top 25 list. Click on the name of the playlist and you’ll be taken to a list of songs. You can preview or buy any/all of them from there.
thank you!