Essential Road Trips Albums for Your Summer Side Quests
Listen to Don’t Forget Me, Who’s the Clown?, Strange Trails, and Sunburn on your next road trip.
The art of the album is a sacred one. When it’s done well, an LP can be the epitome of an artist’s storytelling abilities, resulting in a sonic journey from top to bottom. Yet in a world of dwindling attention spans and grind-never-stops mentalities, it can be hard to dedicate the time to truly listen to an album from beginning to end. Unless, of course, you’re driving down the same stretch of highway for 100 miles with thoughts to spare and car speakers to crank.
With vacation season in full swing, Off the Record compiled a list of essential road trip albums to blast while channeling your inner Little Miss Sunshine. Keep reading for thought-provoking, scene-setting, and steering-wheel-drum-worthy album recommendations for your next travel adventure.
Don’t Forget Me by Maggie Rogers
Brooke Shapiro, Music Extras Co-Editor
The ideal road trip album has a mix of narrative journey and mood-setting sonics. Exhibit A: Maggie Rogers’ Don’t Forget Me. After cementing her status as a serious player in the alt-pop world with her first two albums, Don’t Forget Me was Rogers’ successful foray into the kind of folk-driven sound perfect for facing the open road. The record has the lush easy listens of “It Was Coming All Along” and “So Sick Of Dreaming,” the attention-gripping love story arc of tracks four through seven, and the profound life reflections of “All The Same” and “Don’t Forget Me” — not to mention the aptly titled “Never Going Home.” When your road trip calls for scenery-induced marveling on life’s simple beauties, let Rogers’ croon serenade you for 35 minutes of bliss.
Strange Trails by Lord Huron
Jane Flautt, Music Extras Co-Editor
No band captures the siren song of the open road with all its seductions and dangers quite like Lord Huron. With a folk-rock sensibility that uniquely blends Western and psychedelic rock, the four-piece’s sophomore album, Strange Trails, is just as weird and wondrous as the title suggests, taking listeners on an expansive journey filled with revenge-seeking ghouls, hapless lovers, and death-defying femme fatales. The album’s final track may be Lord Huron’s most famous release (“The Night We Met,” with over three billion streams on Spotify), but each song on the record is a character-driven earworm in its own right, from an undead man’s sinister revenge plot on the twangy “The World Ender,” to a witch’s nefarious spellcasting on the rollicking “Cursed,” and a good-for-nothing lover’s charming infatuation on the effervescent “Louisa.” It’s been over 10 years since its release, and Strange Trails remains the quintessential road trip album: entertaining, folksy, and humming with the energy of new terrain.
Who’s the Clown? by Audrey Hobert
Claire Cole, Contributor
Not every album can be a road trip album. Nor does every album want to be one. But there is no denying that Who’s the Clown? by Audrey Hobert is perfect for upping the energy when you’re hitting the slog of mile 200. Existential but upbeat, clever but not too heady, it balances and blends contradictions into the perfect 35-minute sing-along experience. The third song, “Drive,” aptly named for a road trip, sets the tone before launching into the middle of the album where Hobert really hits her stride. It brings the feelings of dancing in your bedroom out of the house and onto the open road, where things feel a little more free and you can envision leaving the problems Hobert sings about behind. Perhaps most importantly, the album ends with a bang. “Silver Jubilee” personifies taking your life into your own hands and making sure you have fun, fittingly evoking a similar feeling to the beginning of a stellar road trip.
Sunburn by Dominic Fike
Harmony Robinson, Contributor
Sunburn by Dominic Fike is the ultimate summer tribute. This 40-minute album takes you back to a time (as Fike puts it on “Pasture Child”) “before we went digital.” Composed of tracks that stick with you like an eternal bronze from childhood summers, this memory-laced album is a road trip essential, keeping you engaged from start to finish as you ride your tank all the way down to “Empty.”
Hiding in Plain Sight by Drugdealer
Ana Marks, Contributor
In just 33 minutes, Drugdealer’s Hiding in Plain Sight transports listeners right back to the '70s and integrates pop and disco-inspired grooves that create a timeless blend of retro and modern indie pop sounds. The saxophones on “New Fascination” and “To Live and Drive in LA” add an undeniably upbeat groove to the record, adding depth to the nostalgia-ridden sonics. The sharp pedal steel and the layered harmonies of front man Michael Collins are highly reminiscent of yacht rock classics, making the perfect soundtrack for cruising down an empty highway.
Honorable Mentions
GUTS by Olivia Rodrigo
Hours Were the Birds by Adrianne Lenker
Norman Fucking Rockwell! by Lana Del Rey
Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder
Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
Sam’s Town by The Killers
No Way To Relax When You Are On Fire by Dora Jar
Imaginal Disk by Magdalena Bay