Deep within the throes of Olympic fever, its easy to make the mistake of thinking that athletes’ superhuman physiques and skills make them unstoppable, infallible gods. So it’s deeply refreshing to get reminded that the ability to play tennis better than, basically, anyone else on earth, or execute a flawless, beautiful dive from 10 meters above the water, doesn’t stop a person from having the musical tastes of total goobers like the rest of us.
That’s the takeaway from a recent Pitchfork piece, investigating the go-to playlists for various athletes on the U.S. Olympic team. It’s not all dire—track and field bronze medalist Clayton Murphy is getting hyped to Chance The Rapper and Jay-Z, while diving’s Sam Dorman rocks out to Frank Ocean and Alice Russell. But there’s definitely some stuff here for those of us who’d like to comfort ourselves about our physical inadequacies by pointing and laughing at the iPods of people who work a billion times harder than we ever could.
Swimming sensation Ryan Murphy’s breaststroke, for instance, is fueled by Blink-182, a band that would presumably find his swimming style of choice extremely ribald. Dana Vollmer, meanwhile, has eight different Fall Out Boy tracks on her list. We’ll skip over Simone Biles’ love of Justin Bieber—both because she’s only 19, and because we don’t want to get burnt at the stake for briefly making fun of America’s new flipping, spinning angel—and instead end on tennis’ Rajeev Ram, whose list, in its entirety, reads thus:
Dave Matthews Band — “Ants Marching”
Dave Matthews Band — “Warehouse”
Dave Matthews Band — “Grey Street”
Ha ha! Get a load of that guy who’s so much better than us at tennis that he could probably kill us with a ball at 500 feet! He likes Dave Matthews Ba—*URK*