It's getting blank in herre

I have no idea what the song of the summer is. Summer hasn't even started yet around here - today is the first sunny Pacific Northwest Friday of the year. I've been too old and creaky to do the necessary assiduous clubbing. Because, as Christopher pointed out, the song of the summer is ephemeral by definition. It's the song that the DJ plays five times in one night and the crowd complains because they need to hear it a sixth time. It's big and it's dumb and it has lyrics about staying fly til you die or getting ur freak on or talking about the young folks or standing under umberellas. If you hear it after September, it will make you homicidal. Most of all, like the fairly reprehensible song alluded to in the post title, it should make listeners want to take off all their clothes (typos in song titles aren't a strict necessity for songs of the summer, but they certainly don't hurt).

If that specific song is out there, I just haven't heard it yet. We can answer this question again in the fall, right Chris? The easy thing to do here is just pick the nearest rap song that has the drum machine set to "triumphant" ("Mr. Carter", come on down!) But instead I'm gonna pick a song about the necessity of the ephemeral moment. It probably won't be the song of the summer, but it really should be:



NB: the official video is here. Big ups to Jedd for introducing me to this song.

The singer earnestly intones a few of the best rock star cliches (models, Paris, heroin, etc.) then goes for the mission statement:

This is our decision to live fast and die young
We've got the vision, now let's have some fun
Yeah, it's overwhelming but what else can we do
Get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning commute?

Indeed, what sort of asshole would do a thing like that? Especially during the summer? "Time to Pretend" may never be played six times in one night, and there's no sweaty rapper hypnotically imploring you to get naked echoed by a robotic chorus of females enthusiastically assenting. But I'm praying that by the end of this summer, right before the lights come during some big dumb wasted summer night, I'll put my arms around you (yes you, Gentle Reader) and we can drunkenly holler along to MGMT together. My ambitions may not be on the scale of say, Gregor Robertson's or Barack Obama's, but ambitions they are nonetheless. It's getting hot in here, Vancouver. It's time to take your clothes off.