What connects Pulp, Kaiser Chiefs and David Bowie? No, not that they have been, at various points in my life, my favourite musical artist, but that they are among those lucky enough to make it onto the Volta ao Algarve's Spotify playlist.
The 50th edition of the Portuguese stage race begins on Wednesday, and an eagle-eyed friend of mine uncovered the 134-song behemoth, which we have embedded below. While the five-day race has become a useful early season proving ground for some of the best cyclists in the world, it also appears that someone within its organisation has an intriguing taste in music.
The playlist is on alongside the race, so as they cross the finish line, the likes of Wout van Aert, Tom Pidcock, and Remco Evenepoel will be able to listen to The Cure or Cyndi Lauper. What they make of the music is unknown.
The man behind the playlist is José Carlos Gomes, the press officer for the race. He tells Cycling Weekly that he "chose the songs with the Volta ao Algarve audience in mind", particularly paying attention to the fact that the crowd is mostly in their 40s and 50s. What that says for my (28M) taste in music, I don't want to comment.
"In addition to the Portuguese, many fans come from all over the world to watch the race," Gomes explained in the email. "Just yesterday I met a group of ten people who had come from Canada to cycle in the Algarve and watch the race.
I have a habit of getting far too into the music that surrounds races. Eighteen months ago I spent so long digging through the official songs of the Vuelta a España that it had a noticeable impact on my Spotify and YouTube algorithms. It still thinks I want to listen to 'Pedaleando' by Serafin Zubiri. On my recent trip to the Tour Down Under I made a press officer send me the lyrics to the 'Feel the Rush', the official song of the race, which was sung by the lead singer of a Led Zeppelin cover band. The obsession might be too much.
Fortunately, in this case, a lot of these songs won't throw my Spotify out of whack. Worryingly, there are a lot of songs that I not only like, but think of as some of the best songs of all time. Not just 'Disco 2000' by Pulp, or 'Let's Dance' by David Bowie, but 'Boys Don't Cry' by The Cure and 'More Than This' by Roxy Music. It is very much for the dads.
When I sent it to a couple of WhatsApp groups I'm in, it was described as "fire" but "eclectic". That seems a fair judgement.
There are some odd songs in there. Gomes seems to like the late work of some of The Beatles, so alongside a classic in 'Got My Mind Set On You' by George Harrison, there's 'Hope of Deliverance' by Paul McCartney. I didn't think there would be a Macca song that I didn't know, but there it is, on the Volta ao Algarve playlist. There's also Coldplay, Foo Fighters, and The Killers, if you're that kind of dad. Get Lucky by Daft Punk is on there too, which is good, because I heard it might be the sound of the summer.
"Traditionally, the companies that set up the race structures - podiums, finish line gantries, barriers - brought their own music," Gomes says. "I didn't like the choices - they were probably for very young people.
"This year's list is the same as last year's. It's been right for the last five years. Initially, for example, we had almost no Portuguese artists on the list, but I thought it made sense to include Portuguese songs from the same pop/rock genre and even fado-pop."
The Portuguese songs are some of the best, even if one of them appears to be a cover of 'Baggy Trousers' by Madness - 'Bué de Baldas' by Despe E Siga. It's a type of music I've never encountered, to be quite honest, so maybe it's time for me to properly get into some Portuguese music, but I'll probably move on from ska.
'Entre dos tierras' by Heroes Del Silencio is a bit of a rock epic, while 'Kriolu' by Dino d'Santiago (feat. Julinho KSD) is about as R&B as this playlist gets. There's also an exclusive song for the Volta, 'A Catita', which was composed and played by one of the race's two official photographers, João Calado. That's the official song of the Volta ao Algarve really, Gomes says, but sadly isn't on Spotify. That's an in-person special.
If you're on the roadside at the Volta, then, you're in for a treat. It feels like BBC Radio 2 might have taken over a corner of Portugal for a weekend, possibly in tribute to Steve Wright, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'm going to keep spreading the joy of this surprising gem. Time to listen to some more Duran Duran, I think.
