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Snowboard Music

10 Of The Greatest Snowboarding Songs – Volume 1

Now that's what I call snowboarding

Photo: Chad Otterstrom by Scott Serfas

We’ve waxed lyrical on it before, but music and snowboarding are really a match made in heaven. Like eggs & bacon, Nico & Gigi or Daphne & Celeste, it’s the perfect combination – two cultures intersecting and intertwining.

Which of us doesn’t have memories tied into the backing tracks from particular videos? Who doesn’t get pumped  to go hit a kicker when their jam comes on? And how many people discovered new music each autumn alongside the unwrapping of cover-mounted DVDs, way before the days of iTunes’ Genius or Spotify ‘s recommendations?

We’ve picked out a few of our absolute favourites when it comes to song choices in shred flicks, though we know for sure that some people will have their own differences in opinion. Missed out your favourite? Let us know below…

I Wanna Rock – The Resistance Intro

You just gotta start with an intro, right? And you can’t beat the start to one of snowboarding’s classic titles: Twisted Sister’s ‘I Wanna Rock’ blasts out whilst one of the game’s best teams ever nails themselves in pursuit of true legend status. They just don’t make slams like they used to anymore…

Sinnerman – Gigi Rüf in Futureproof

10 years is a long time, but it still seems like yesterday when Gigi Rüf burst through Absinthe‘s lenses and out of our screens – the part more than hold up to time’s cruel pace as well. Futureproof indeed. Nina Simone’s lilting voice soothes as one of the laziest style to ever hit big Alaskan faces, building and building throughout. Sublime, blissful, magnificent.

Paranoid Android – Romain De Marchi in Vivid

For the first of his pseudo-performace-art parts (see also Saturation and Pop), Romain De Marchi spiced up his contribution to Vivid with some shirtless machete-wielding and money-showering. The jury remains out as to what exactly he was getting at, but this seminal Radiohead tune was a good fit for his deliberate oddness. Plus the song’s slow ‘rain down’ section was the perfect backdrop to his kicker run-in.

My Delirium – Am Section in Fuck It

There are few parts that’ll get the blood pumping like a good am section, but when the ams in question are Austin Sweetin, Mario Kaipelli and Alek Oestreng – all united under the last years of the Forum banner – you’ve got yourself a classic. Coupled with the dreamy-yet-driven synths from Ladyhawke’s ‘My Delirium’, looking back on it now gives us chills – both for the futures of these raw and ready young guns and for the demise of the great Forum team.

The Spirit of Radio – Torstein Horgmo in IRPC

Editing to fit a song can ruin a part – just look at the hundreds of amateur efforts on YouTube that do it to the nth degree – but the makers of I Ride Park City absolutely nailed it with Torstein Horgmo’s ender. As the Norwegian throws hammers in the sun and slush, the sound of Canada’s finest rock band is nothing short of triumphant. We pity the poor editor who had to cut to Neal Pert’s frantic drumming, but the finished result was worth it.

Heartbeats – Afterlame

Once upon a time, having snowboarders talk to the camera wasn’t totally cliched and cringing. Once upon a time, directors could take a risk with an odd Scandi duo who normally sounded like this (and it was a real risk, not one smug Shoreditch twats calculated). And once upon a time, all our heroes gathered under David Benedek‘s wings and flew together through snow that was bottomless. This is of course the Heartbeats section from Robot Food‘s Afterlame.

Day In The Life – JP Solberg in Transcendence

The Beatles saw some weird shit no doubt, but even they probably never imagined a giant Norwegian bunny sailing over Mt Hood, but then there’s few other bands that could’ve made music that would work with a sight like that. Somehow it just works and ends up feeling totally natural, down to the great filming and editing from Absinthe. It even manages to make the strange orchestral breakdown mid way through feel completely at home – genius.

Ante Up – JP Walker in True Life

Skip over to 1.25 to catch MOP’s ‘Ante Up’ defining an era of urban snowboarding – picnic benches, do-rags and bungee-less run ins. JP Walker has had many a great track complimenting his parts over the years, but nothing says ‘upping the ante’ more than literally shouting it over and over again. You know what subtle means?

Just A Friend – True Life

It’s a True Life double-whammy, but nothing could be a more perfect follow-up to JP’s gangsta ender than the cheese-hop of Biz Markie. The credits section has long been an excuse to chuck in the footage that doesn’t fit anywhere else in the movie, and there’s plenty of that here – then things get even better when Bjorn Leines steps up to the mic and leads of the greatest teams of all time in an epic lip-sync.

Gold On The Ceiling – RK1

Seeing as it’s the digital age and all, we had to include an ‘edit’ in amongst all the video parts, and for our money these action-packed six and a half minutes are still among the finest ever put online, even three years on. Ståle Sandbech, Alek Østreng & Len Jørgensen – these days all united on the Rome pro team – still set the gold standard on what style means to snowboarding, whether it’s in the park, streets or backcountry, and the Black Keys’ track still shines through thanks to the editing skills of RK1’s chief weirdo, even if it did get used in every subsequent season edit for about two years after.

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