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In Part Two of Hive’s Summer Special, we’re looking at those songs that define our summer months. Songs you hear over and over at cookouts, songs that conjure up lazy-day memories and procrastination. But most of all, songs that exemplify joy in one way or another.
Our second question for this week for our panel of experts: What’s your all-time favorite summer song?
Lizzi Bougatos (Singer/percussionist, Gang Gang Dance)
Last year, it was Donao’s “Party Hard.” Also, a Gyption tune … hearing that blaze out of trucks on Delancey Street was riveting to come home to after tour. (Gang Gang Dance‘s new album Eye Contact is out now.)
[Listen to "Party Hard" here.]
Matt Pinfield (Host 120 Minutes/120 Seconds)
My favorite summer song of all time is the Kinks “Sunny Afternoon,” a hit back in the summer of 1966. The lyrics tell of a lazy guy resigned to drinking beer in the sun after his girlfriend takes his car and the government is after his ass for back taxes. Funny yet tragic … I think of it every single summer. It should be noted that the summer of ’66 had more great songs with summer sunshine references than any other with year: The Rolling Stones‘ “Paint It Black,” Donovan‘s “Sunshine Superman” and the Lovin’ Spoonful‘s “Summer in the City.” (Follow Matt Pinfield at @mattpinfield)
[Listen to "Sunny Afternoon" here.]
Bethany Cosentino (Singer/guitarist, Best Coast)
My favorite summer song is probably the Annette Funicello song called “Surfer’s Holiday.” It’s a super generic we’re-going-down-to-the-beach-with-our-surfer-boys kind of song, but it’s really fun. They play it a lot in Trader Joe’s, which is weird. But it’s a really good, feel-good fun song. It puts you in a summer mood. (Follow Bethany at @bestycoastyy)
[Listen to "Surfer's Holiday" here.]
Luis Tolvar (Founder/blogger, Pretty Much Amazing)
I may not have an all-time favorite summer song, but in recent summers, I haven’t gone more than a few days without playing Vampire Weekend‘s “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” from their self-titled debut. The music and its lyrics paint a wonderful caricature of summer. (Follow Luis at @pmablog)
James Montgomery (Senior Editor, MTV News)
Last year, I enlisted a whole bunch of folks to determine “The Greatest Summer Jams of the Modern Era” (whatever that meant), and the song we bizarrely kept coming back to was Nelly‘s “Hot in Herre,” though, really, it’s not hard to see why. From the triumphantly cheesy opening notes and the popping, locking beat to a chorus so delightfully stupid that it might actually be brilliant, it might just be the most ridiculous song ever recorded … which, almost by default, also makes it the greatest summer jam. (Follow James at @positivnegativ)
[Listen to "Hot in Herre" here.]
Andrew Flanagan (Senior Editor, The Daily Swarm)
Awol One and Daddy Kev’s “Rhythm,” from their record Souldoubt, is like a half-depressed/half-nihilist personal anthem directed at the best and worst days of summer. Awol One’s lyricism is flabbergastingly disjointed, the beat uses an unimpeachably perfect sample and nothing overstays its welcome. Just like that. (Follow Andrew at @philouza)
[Listen to "Rhythm" here.]
Lizzy Goodman (New York)
It’s obvious, but DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince’s “Summertime.” Drums please … but if I have to pick something else I’d go with the Pharcyde‘s album Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde. It’s dirty and witty, and I know all the words. (Follow Lizzy at @lizzydgoodman)
Jessica Suarez (Editor, Stereogum)
Freestyle says silver-painted shadeless rooftops, park days, block parties. The entire genre feels like summer in New York. Ghost Town DJ’s “My Boo” has a strong freestyle influence and yearning R&B vocals. It was one of those pop songs that somehow came through to me, although I had sworn off Top 40 radio in high school. “My Boo” doesn’t have a ton of bass, just those two mild thumps per measure, so it sounded good coming out of the weak speakers of my ’96 Nissan Sentra. Now it sounds good coming out of a boombox — or, more likely, out of wireless iPod dock speakers. (Follow Jessica at @jessicasuarez)
[Listen to "My Boo" here.]
Craig “Dodge” Lile (Founder/blogger, My Old Kentucky Blog)
Picking one song is an impossibility. Every summer has a multitude of favorites for me. Top of my head, right now: My Morning Jacket‘s “One Big Holiday,” and most of the White Stripes‘ catalog. I could go on for days about this. (Follow Dodge at @DodgeMOKB)
Andrew Nosnitsky (Founder/blogger, Cocaineblunts)
UGK‘s “Front Back Side to Side” because it combines two generations of ride around with the windows down favorites – the Meters and Eazy E — into one. And because it turns your rearview mirror into gelatin. (Follow Andrew at @noz)
[Listen to "Front Back Side to Side" here.]
Eric Spitznagel (Vanity Fair, Playboy, The Believer)
It will always be “Summertime Rolls” by Jane’s Addiction. For one thing, it has “summer” in the title, so there’s no confusion about which season it’s about. I listened to that song pretty incessantly during the summer of 1992. Specifically, on the corner of Belmont and Clark in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood. Even more specifically, while drinking watered-down coffee at the Dunkin Donuts on the corner of Belmont and Clark, which always seemed to be filled with beautiful tattooed ladies with dark hair and exposed midriffs and bellybutton piercings. I can’t begin to tell you how many American Spirits I smoked while sitting at the front counter, pretending to read and thus not stare too obviously at the booth in the corner, right next to the restroom, which was invariably filled with a gaggle of girls dressed in BDSM-by-way-of-the-suburbs outfits, their latex rubber pants screeching like a siren song, their Misfits skull t-shirts knotted at the waist, perfectly choreographed to show just enough navel to make me insane. I don’t know why “Summertime Rolls” makes me conjure that same memory time and time again. But every time I hear Perry Farrell wail “Me and my girlfriend don’t wear no shoes,” I can practically smell the hot Chicago pavement and the day-old Munchkins. (Follow Eric at @ericspitznagel)
Tomorrow, we conclude with : What’s hot for summer 2011?
