It’s August, and yet I feel like summer just started. Richmond’s getting hot hot hot, and even the river is bathtub warm. But the dog days are undeniably here, and so, just as with every other August, the search for the “Song of the Summer” starts up again.
Summer songs are an odd breed – they don’t have to be objectively good (and are often quite bad), and though they can be from any and every genre, they all have to have that indescribable summery vibe. I remember 10 years or so ago (holy crap, I’m old) when the Powers That Be decided that the song of Summer 1999 was Len‘s “Steal My Sunshine.” (The Youtube comments on this song sum up how I feel about it: “I feel dumb for even looking this up.” I don’t really remember it being THIS bad, but then again I was 13, so my taste was pretty awful. New Radicals, a much better band that came out around the same time, though still a one-hit wonder, seem a lot less dated.) In 2006 that song was Lily Allen‘s “LDN.” And last year, it seemed to be Sean Kingston‘s “Beautiful Girls.”
(Note: I tried to post the video for “Steal My Sunshine” here, but it’s so bad that even Youtube said “no way.” Look it up if you’re feeling masochistic, want to see a brother and a sister get a little too close for comfort, and you really feel like having the dulcet tones of “L-A-T-E-R THAT WEEK” haunt your nightmares for a few days.)
So what makes a song a Summer Song? Well, there seem to be a few criteria: It needs to be in a major key, have a very simple chord progression (“Steal My Sunshine” follows bVII-IV-I, and “Beautiful Girls” I-vi-IV-V), and the lyrics should be pretty brainless.
Random interjection: When I was young my family would go to Bethany Beach every summer, and when we left home in Woodbridge we’d listen to whatever on the radio, but when we got to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, the undeniable sign that we were going to THE BEACH, my parents would put the Beach Boys‘ “Endless Summer” in the cassette player, and we’d rock out on that until we got to the hotel. We never listened to that tape any other time of the year, and so those early Beach Boys songs represent to me the epitome (not epidemy, as I’ve seen it spelled) of summer music – music made for a specific time, a specific place, and more powerful evoking those memories rather than being evocative in and of itself.
Which brings me to my nominee this year: Gotye‘s “Learnalilgivinanlovin.” It’s cheating a bit, since this album was released two years ago in his homeland of Australia (and I’ve been grooving on it for around a year and a half). But it’s seeing worldwide release this year, which means it’s in contention, so THERE. I love Gotye’s style on the entire album (make sure you also hear “Heart’s a Mess”), but this song is super killer sweet. It’s everything I love about Phil Spector’s stuff without the waving a gun at the Ramones craziness.
I’m loving the soul revival that’s going on in Britain and Australia right now, and even though Gotye’s album “Like Drawing Blood” is all over the place with genres and styles, this is really, really fun. If you find yourself in downtown Richmond and you’re in my neighborhood, you might hear this blaring at full blast out my windows.
So what’s your Summer Song of Twenty-Oh-GREAT?
New Radicals – You Get What You Give
Heh am I actually the only reply to this awesome post?