Music has the power to completely transform your mood from gloomy to glad with just a few taps on your streaming account. So in the spirit of songs as stress-relievers, every week star contributor Callie Ahlgrim will be back with a playlist of tracks you need to add to your playlists according to a theme. This week, Callie’s helping you get pumped for the day with a “Morning Hype” themed playlist. According to her, these are “Songs to counteract the mood caused by your 6 AM alarm. This playlist should be taken with a shot of espresso and applied during an impromptu post-shower dance party. Clothes optional.”

  1. “ELEMENT.” – Kendrick Lamar. Only Kendrick Lamar could drop a vain, ridiculous, bubblegum-beat diss track with the corniest chorus and still sound incendiary. This song combines so many elements (haha) that it just shouldn’t work — but it’s catchy as hell, radio-ready, and still showcases Kendrick in top form, sharp and lucid. As the opening verse leaps into the hook — sparked by the waggishly quotable catchphrase, “I don’t do it for the ‘Gram, I do it for Compton” — it’s impossible not to feel those tempo switches and beat bounces deep inside your bones. Kendrick’s strength and mastery tends to radiate within his listeners, and there’s no better way to start your day than with unabashed confidence.
  2. “Girls @ (feat. Chance the Rapper)” – Joey Purp. The second best way to start your day is with pure fun. This song is so fresh, so bubbly that it’s practically carbonated, like the first sip of soda on a hot summer day. I’m fully on board with anything that shouts out Ta-Nehisi Coates, Outkast, and Destiny’s Child — but the unbounded energy with which those references are delivered really gives this song flavor. It’s wildly amusing to rap along with, but if you don’t know the words, it’s equally enjoyable just to bounce.
  3. “All Night (feat. Knox Fortune)” – Chance the Rapper. If you apply all your willpower and try to resist bopping your head to this song, you will fail every time. Every song on Coloring Book has been soaked in Chance the Rapper’s positivity, but “All Night” marinates in it. You can practically hear each word bursting with his gladness and sheer energy. It’s arguably the most radio-appropriate song in Chance’s entire discography because it appeals to everyone. If its exuberance and cheeky lyrics don’t make you want to start dancing, you’re a lost cause.
  4. “Come Get It Bae” – Pharrell Williams. It’s easy to forget that Pharrell Williams is a solo artist. He has dominated the charts by channeling his charitable nature, adopting lesser talents like Daft Punk and Robin Thicke and becoming the King Midas of otherwise-average pop songs. His most recent collaboration project, N.E.R.D,’s No One Ever Really Dies, is excellent. But let’s not allow the genius of “Lemon” to overshadow G I R L, an almost-perfect and oft-forgotten pop album. With “Come Get it Bae,” as usual, his best inventions are a little weird — but still somehow capture the ubiquity of mass appeal. It’s uncluttered, euphoric, graceful, and laced with some unassuming Miley Cyrus vocals. It’s not annoying like “Happy,” but still has the energy that makes you want to drop what you’re doing and blast it out of your speakers.
  5. “Blow Your Mind (Mwah)” – Dua Lipa. “Blow Your Mind” is like the older, underrated sister of Dua Lipa’s breakout hit “New Rules.” To be sure, they’re both certified bangers with a feminist twist, so feel free to listen to them both back to back, on repeat, for the rest of your life. But I wanted to shine a spotlight on the former in this playlist, because the combination of the beat drop and Dua’s voice surging into the chorus is consistently exhilarating.
  6. “Lose Control (feat. Ciara and Fat Man Scoop)” – Missy Elliott. The greatest gift Katy Perry has ever given us was allowing Missy Elliott to save the Super Bowl and, thus, reviving our collective worship. Of course, as she graciously acknowledged in a tweet following the performance, younger generations thought she was a new artist because she will never not be relevant and can “rip down stages” whenever she wants — largely due to the delightful vivacity and zest that she brings to every song. In particular, “Lose Control” was the first song that ever made me want to forget my insecurities and dance my feet off. Missy’s matter-of-fact self-embrace — her “cute face, chubby waist, thick legs” — was the first time I had ever heard a woman revel in her own body, and that verve, that assuredness, remains as liberating as ever.  
  7. “The New Workout Plan” – Kanye West. “The New Workout Plan” from Kanye’s debut album is one of the more divisive songs for his fan base. There are people who love it, there are people who purport to despise it, but I’ve never known anyone who actually turns it off. If anyone can combine the callous honesty of a social satire with the jaunty helter-skelter of an old exercise video, it’s him. In true Kanye fashion, it’s one of those things that feels a little nauseating on the surface, but it’s too much fun to resist.
  8. “212” – Azealia Banks, Lazy Jay. This has been one of the first songs on every party playlist I’ve ever made. Even just the 15-second opening — with its dynamic beat and interlaced musical base by Lazy Jay — is a banger in itself. The lyrics don’t even matter. Azealia’s heady, purposeful flow allows them to melt into the production. As it continues to build throughout the song, her voice becomes an extension of the beat. (That being said, when the hook drops, it’s outrageously fun to jump up and down yelling, “What you gon’ do when I appear? / W-w-when I premiere? / Bitch, the end of your lives are near / This shit been mine, mine.”)
  9. “Bitch Better Have My Money” – Rihanna. There’s no human being alive who could pull off this song — except, of course, Rihanna. It’s more than three minutes of unadulterated bitchiness, of obliterating gender norms, and it never feels boring, obvious, cliché, or overdone. In what has become my favorite Rihanna habit, she name-drops herself and immediately indoctrinates the listener in a self-worshipping ideology. Confidence bleeds from every word and she demands that you sing along.
  10. “Filthy” – Justin Timberlake. Despite the lukewarm reception for Man of the Woods, the album’s lead single is a bop. Admittedly, it’s the sort of bop that you’re pretty sure you hate at first. The song combines mismatching elements to create an intentional discord, meaning that it takes a couple listens to worm its way through your eardrum and nest inside your reptilian brain. “Filthy” stands out because of its avant-garde production, making it an outlier for modern pop music — and, after some time, completely irresistible.