With Labor Day weekend and the summer shrinking in the collective rearview mirror, deliberation continues over 2015’s Song of the Summer. In the world of music, this honored position in the zeitgeist is serious business, meriting features, polls, and endless assertion and debate on social media. (My vote goes to "Why the Fuck You Lying?") Moreover, it’s a bit of monoculture that—as the notion slips away—listeners can agree exists, even if they have lots of different favorites.
"People relax," Peter Robinson, editor of Popjustice.com, a UK-based citadel of poptomism, told The Guardian in 2009, when it tried to suss out the elements of Songs of the Summer in the UK. "People stop trying to cover up the fact that they like simple pop music. Pretending you don't like music with a very catchy tune is tiring, so people take the summer off."
If we’re to crown a Song of the Summer in our glorious seasonal afterglow, it helps to get a sense of what’s defined one in the past. This playlist—while not comprehensive or definitive—looks back into the history, the cultural DNA, of American pop’s Songs of the Summer to take stock of what constitutes the prestigious title, the classics and this summer's zeitgeist.
Listen to this playlist on Apple Music.
The Prototypes
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong: "Summertime"
This timeless vocal-jazz standard has been re-recorded in upwards of 25,000 times, by one estimate. The Porgy and Bess standout is, in a sense, the genesis of Songs of the Summer. Ubiquitous since its first recording in 1935, its lullaby melodies bring listeners into a bucolic respite ("the livin’ is easy"), set in the troubled Jim Crow-era South ("and the cotton is high"). It’s a precursor of sorts to Songs of the Summer that are catchy, even tranquil, but tempered by angst or struggle, heard this summer in Wiz Khalifa’s "See You Again" or Kendrick Lamar’s "Alright". Singers spanning 20th century pop have covered the Gershwins-composed tune, from Billie Holiday to Janis Joplin to Annie Lennox. Even Sublime took a swing at it, interpolating instrumental jazz versions for its 1997 rock-radio hit "Doin’ Time".
The Beach Boys: "Fun Fun Fun"
When Brian Wilson was asked if there are "no good summer songs that [he] didn’t write," Wilson’s reply was, simply, "Not really." He’s not wrong. Wilson and squad de facto perfected the archetypical Song of the Summer in the '60s. The Beach Boys’ legacy may be a bit diluted but nothing can take their era-defining summer jams away from them. Given that a T-bird is central to "Fun Fun Fun", T-Pain’s mixtape flip of Jidenna’s "Classic Man"—a song about his love of classic cars—is one of its closest kin this summer.
John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John: "Summer Nights"
Don Henley: "Boys of Summer"
Bryan Adams: "Summer of '69"
The idea of a Song of the Summer imposes itself enough on culture. Pair it with an inoculating dose of nostalgia about summer, wistful over youthful days past—like this infectious trifecta of songs does—and it’s near unstoppable. "Summer Nights", the 1978 hit from Grease, is a sugar rush of campy Broadway pop. The ghastly "Did she put up a fight?" line (what the fuck, right??) sidles up alongside the central theme of heartbreak and longing.
Henley’s 1984 hit "Boys of Summer" has longing to spare. The classic-rock ballad was given more recent life by pop-punk band the Ataris, updating the song’s original "Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac" to a Black Flag reference. The War on Drugs has mined the song’s sound deeply as of late, namely its shuffle, analog synth, and drum pad sounds. This summer, the "Boys of Summer" sentiment has been digitized into an EDM avatar, encompassed inside a different guitar brrang and laser pulse in Calvin Harris’ "Summer".
Adams’ 1985 hit "Summer of '69" regained a little cultural caché this summer, immortalized previously as a "Freebird!"-type punchline in the age of the Patron Saint of Sad Boys, ol’ Ryan Adams. The name-gamed country artist ejected an audience member over an infamous heckle involving the song and, in that same venue almost 13 years later, covered "Summer of '69" with a plaintive, even haunting, sincerity. Like Henley sighing and looking back at his youth, Bryan Adams’ hit has been captured and digitized—in a supremely nostalgic haze—by Jamie xx, whose "I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times)" was the unofficial Song of the Summer (Electronic Music Division).
New Summer Classics
Los Del Rio: "Macarena (Bayside Boys Remix)"
Every few years, American Top 40 craves a Song of the Summer that compels us to dance en masse. If you had working ears in the summer of 1995, "Macarena" was omnipresently, oppressively played to the point of it being dance propaganda, heralding a forthcoming wave of '90s Latin pop. In 2015, dance sensations live largely bottled in YouTube or Vine fandoms/communities, where one of this year’s Songs of the Summer—"Watch Me" by Silentó—gained a steady head of steam all summer, instructing everyone whip and/or nae nae (also bop, do the stanky leg, etc.) into the top three of the U.S. singles charts.
The Sundays: "Summertime"
The UK dream pop band’s only crossover across the pond—it broke the top ten of the U.S. Alternative Songs chart in 1997– hit (as much as a low-key charming UK pop group like the Sundays can "hit") before its hiatus, going out on a high. Modest stateside success aside, its blissed-out chorus rivals even the sweetest of Beach House melodies. No youthful exuberance but Fetty Wap’s in his summer hit "Trap Queen" could match it.
Ace of Base: "Cruel Summer"
The summer struggle stays real into the '80s and '90s with this Swedish pop cover of the 1983 UK hit from Bananarama. Fifteen years later, Ace of Base vaunted it to a worldwide adult-contemporary hit, breaking the top ten in America. "For me, our hit, 'Cruel Summer', played on the darker side," said Sara Dallin, Bananarama singer-songwriter. "It looked at the oppressive heat, the misery of wanting to be with someone as the summer ticked by. We've all been there." This summer’s rise of Rachel Platten’s "Fight Song" was this year’s AC summer-struggle hit, breaking the top ten in the U.S. with its inescapable hook.
Katy Perry: "California Gurls" [ft. Snoop Dogg]
Lana Del Rey: "Summertime Sadness (Cedric Gervais Remix)"
Time will tell if these recent hits will become summer staples but Perry and Del Rey don’t look like they or their catalogs are fading from relevance anytime soon. "California Gurls" is nakedly kitsch, Perry’s forté and something American pop never seems to dispense with fully. She’s boasting about her home state, easy, breezy and beautiful with Snoop Dogg’s effortless verse to boot. It doesn’t hurt the song’s legitimacy that Beach Boys' Brian Wilson and Mike Love gave it their blessings. Rihanna’s comeback smash "Bitch Better Have My Money" is a "California Gurls"-type boast filtered through her rude gyal sensibilities, jagged where Katy chooses to be smooth. Instead of featuring latter-day Snoop Dogg, Rihanna conjures the spirit of his former Death Row labelmate Tupac (so says Killer Mike), bursting with bad-ladyswagger.
Del Rey’s "Summertime Sadness" brought the Sad Girl summer struggle of "Cruel Summer" into present day while Gervais chopped and tucked her vocals in and around the buzzy compression of the EDM sound du jour. Justin Bieber’s vocals got a similar treatment this summer in Skrillex and Diplo’s "Where Are Ü Now". His cut-and-warped vocals holding onto their central emotion like Del Rey’s did. It goes to show that no matter how filtered or altered evocations of summertime become—in sentiment, technological medium, sound, time, space—Songs of the Summer will always be there for us when the time and temperature is right. Can it be summer 2016 yet?