![]() It’s entirely possible that skaters jumping under the influence of Future’s highest-flying love song will gain some extra hang time to complete their spins.Įrykah is almost always cool, but the one song where she loses her cool turns out, paradoxically, to be a song quite worthy of being treated on ice. The second track on Born to Die is just the best example of many: with its effortless shifts in tone and pace coupled with a ready melody, skaters have everything they need to complete them. Though anything but cold herself, Lana makes a lot of music that turns out to be perfect for low-temperature skating. (Exhibitions had always been a different matter: witness East German legend Katarina Witt’s rendition of Michael Jackson’s “Bad” way back in 1988.) With that in mind, and also perhaps out of a desire to avoid more Beatles songs and “Hallelujah” on ice, we compiled a list of 25 songs that are both great on their own and ideal for figure-skating performances. Pop music is just beginning to expand its presence in figure skating: It was only in 2014 that the International Skating Union, which governs the sport, permitted the use of songs with lyrics in competitive routines. Figure skating, with its special conjunction of dignity and swift motion, naturally calls for parallel sonics: when French pair skaters Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres chose the Weeknd’s waltz-like “ Earned It” for their routine last year, it was clearly an inspired choice. What works best is music whose power is phrased with smoothness and delicacy. The lumbering 808s of trap the knotty, sober poetry of classic hip-hop the sizzle of classic rock and roll the abrasive charge of punk the serrations of metal the ironic reserve of college rock - however effective in their native settings, they all fall flat on the well-lit ice. One could add much else to the list of musical traits that make poor complements for skating. Certain modes of music just don’t harmonize with the act of gliding over, and spinning above, a frozen surface, a fact well illustrated by current American Olympian Jimmy Ma, who scored a routine to DJ Snake and Lil Jon’s dissonant, spastic club anthem “ Turn Down for What.” It turned out that, no matter how graceful Ma’s motions were on ice, the rancorous fizzles of the more brutal variants of EDM couldn’t resonate with them. Who could imagine a routine conducted entirely in silence? Yet there are limits to the sort of music that gets played. What could only serve as a distraction in other sports turns out to be a necessity in skating. The presence of music, which pursues a similar trance-like state of mind, is a leading sign of figure skating’s status as an art. ![]() Figure skaters are athletes, but they’re also artists, people who consciously represent an ideal sensibility, and witnessing their fall has the same disorienting quality as being wrenched out of a dream. But when a figure skater slips, it’s always ugly. There’s a sense of disappointment but no sense of ugliness. When a skier crashes or a speed skater falters, it’s purely a failure of the body. ![]() Invented by a New York City ballet dancer in the 19th century and popularized and formalized in continental Europe, figure skating, in its motions and presentation, enhances the sublime experience of intense athletic competition with the expression of grace in fragility - what people generally refer to as beauty. No matter what you need to get done, these jams will help get you there.Among all the sports at the Winter Olympics, figure skating is the strangest and the most distinct: unlike the others, there’s a unique element of fine art inscribed into its history. On this list of the 33 best inspirational songs of all-time, you’ll find everything from aspirational rap classics to rock’n’roll affirmations to pop stars who inspire simply by existing. Sure, rock stars aren’t always folks who may have quite the same problems as the rest of us, but unless their dad is George Harrison many of them have struggled at some point in their lives - or at the very least needed some inspiration of their own. But the best inspirational songs don’t just nudge you toward your goal - they make you feel like the person singing is pursuing the same mission right alongside you. ![]() In some cases, it can be any song that means something to you. Whether you need a push to finally finish that novel or apply for that dream job or just get out of bed in the morning, the right song can get you there.
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