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.

Song of the Summer 2008: Osh Kosh rock

My vote is a deadlock tie.



"Out There on the Ice"
Cut Copy
Allow me to break it down: perhaps you're in da proverbial club, lights jabbing in your eyes from indiscernible sources, you're searching the thronging crowd for that special someone. Drugs and/or alcohol may be inhibiting or enhancing your search, and they're certainly fueling your paranoia: has she left without me? Am I too late? Does she know I actually care? Save me, blog-house banger!


"Kim and Jessie"
M83

Or, perhaps, you're in a sunny field with your friends and your new crush. You're all around the vicinity of sixteen, or something nearly as absolving. It's the middle of summer; school is as far gone as it is approaching. Your friends are giggling and whispering about the two of you, but you don't care. The light is so hazy through the trees that you can't see past her face. Time is standing still and junk. Or at least, it was, in retrospect. Remind me, shoegaze throwback!

Never mind, maybe you're just in American Apparel, desperately searching for the outfit that will bring back all the hotness of a past decade; the fuzzy celluloid Hughes-ian memories that you think you ought to have, despite being approximately four years old at the time. Right now, in the fleeting-yet-responsible part of our youth, we can elect to bliss out to the music of the adolescence we yearned for, crib-side in our Osh Koshes.

Kitsch notwithstanding, both tracks have definite bliss-moments, which I submit as a necessary condition for flagship summer songs. "Out There on the Ice" is at 3:29--acid synth gives way to staccato key pecks and a vocal line so earnestly overwrought that all misgivings over artifice and ambiance must be forgiven. 'Cause it's genre pop, and it's a tasty treat, if ephemeral. But so is the pacific northwestern summer. With similar consequences, "Kim and Jessie" peaks out at 4:03--bridge built, shimmering chorus revisited, Mr. Gonzales breaks out and dusts off a guitar line so steeped in the Reagan era that the listener must summarily remove their headphones and proceed to detention at Shermer High School. Every time this song is played out loud, Molly Ringwald loses a wrinkle.

Here's to making it through today by making up yesterday, one summer song at a time.

Song of the Summer 2008: The Seed 3.0

With a stripped-down, infectious guitar lick and a hilariously overblown hook sung by Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump, the Roots’ Birthday Girl” is so hot that it immediately begs the question Ben Mathis Lilley asked in his recent Slate piece, “Did The Roots just trick me into liking a lame emo band?” The answer, thank Anansi, is no. But ?uestlove’s self-admitted “easy pop song” does have all the qualities of a classic song of summer: It’s ridiculously catchy. It’s an attempt at crossover appeal. You can shake your two-step to it. And, perhaps most importantly, it comes on strong and fades away without a trace (in this case with an echoing Yo La Tengo-ish hum-along).

The funny thing is that, because of the Roots particular place in alt-hip pop culture, in creating this consummate piece of bubblegum summer fare they’ve managed to please just about no one. On his Status Ain’t Hood blog, Tom Breihan called “Birthday Girl” “quite possibly the worst thing the Roots have ever done,” comparing it unfavourably to Lil’ Wayne’s “Lollipop” On their own website, Okayplayer.com, first-year college lit pretentious fans so bemoaned the inclusion of the track that the Roots ultimately left it off the album.

So in defence of the fun-loving Roots of What They Do and the Seed 2.0, I nominate “Birthday Girl” as my song of the summer.



As an aside, the song has two videos. I prefer the handheld hipster party one above, but, with a wink-wink, nudge-nudge, the other (apparently official) video hilariously features youthful pornstar Sasha Grey, whose Wikipedia page states that she originally considered using Anna Karina (the name of Godard’s ex-wife) as her porn name. Charming.

It takes three to make it outta sight!

First with a high wail: "It takes two to make a thing go right..."

Then the bass lick with a soprano shout: "... It takes two to make it outta sight."

Number 1 with a bullet. The song is this summer's hands-down winner for Sound of the Ghetto, with that deep-bottom bass line and those high-pitched screams on the quarter beat. Thick drum tack, def rhythm and some sweet-voiced yoette wailing out the same two-line lyric. East side, west side, and all around town, the corner boys of Baltimore are fighting and dying to the same soundtrack.

- Homicide, by David Simon

Corner boys mount up!!!

Nearly half the summer has gone by and it's as yet unclear what this year's "It Takes Two" is. In the absence of a Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock summer banger, in a barefaced attempt to deem themselves the arbiters of populist taste, a handful of internet organizations (Yahoo Answers, Popwatch, Redeye, etc.) have taken it upon themselves to name the song of the summer. What they (and everyone else) fail to realize is that they are not the arbiters of taste... We are.

Lest a Leona Lewis vs. Carrie Underwood poll take things out of our hands, I believe it's the Today's Snow Job team's responsibility, nay duty, to weigh in with their personal selections.

To this end, the music question of the week is: What's your personal song of the summer for 2008?

Only 2008 releases need apply.

Comments are welcome.