A bay bay

July 19, 2007 12:25 PM

Speaking of 'highly virulent earworms,' today's NY Times suggests that searching for this year's 'song of the summer' may lead to "one sad conclusion." Have today's hitmakers failed to live up to the jams of yesteryear? Others have offered their opinions...
posted by whahappen?! (35 comments total)

Maybe it doesn’t matter that the Song of the Summer contest is a goofy fiction.

Non-existent trend no other extant. Film at 11.
posted by ao4047 at 12:42 PM on July 19, 2007

One sad conclusion is that the New York Times' music writers wouldn't know good music if it bit them on the ass.
posted by blucevalo at 12:42 PM on July 19, 2007

I think the NYT writer is off the wall. I mean "roofless cars"? What?

Anyway, I always thought of summer songs as being kind of fun and catchy, but not necessarily love/lust songs. Hey Ya! was a great summer song a few years ago, as well as My Humps (which I really just don't want to think of as a love/lust song.) I'd even count slightly darker songs as a summer song, like Crazy by Gnarlz Barkley.
posted by elwoodwiles at 12:44 PM on July 19, 2007

I nominate "Jane Fonda" by Mickey Avalon.
posted by sourwookie at 12:50 PM on July 19, 2007

I would love to read this article in its entirety, but Smash Mouth and Len have invaded my brain and made me feel irritated and breezy and love hungover all at the same time. There's no summer like that first one out of high school, I guess. And so my song of summer remains this one...
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:58 PM on July 19, 2007

I nominate "The Underdog" by Spoon.
posted by NationalKato at 1:02 PM on July 19, 2007

god I'm old. I have never heard of any of the songs in the linked articles.

(slinks back to my decrepit iTunes library)
posted by desjardins at 1:03 PM on July 19, 2007

Nicotine, valium, vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol.
Nicotine, valium, vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol.
Nicotine, valium, vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol.
Nicotine, valium, vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol.
C-c-c-c-c-cocaine.
posted by The Straightener at 1:07 PM on July 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

ELLA ELLA AY AY AY
posted by Divine_Wino at 1:09 PM on July 19, 2007

Ambrosia: But that song's so melancholy! (Or is that just because I was reading a melancholy book when I first heard that album?)
posted by Pronoiac at 1:12 PM on July 19, 2007

I'm pickin' up good vibrations
She's givin' me excitations
*theremin solo*

The Song of The Summer was written decades ago, and it will never be dethroned.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:17 PM on July 19, 2007

Here is my favorite song right now.
posted by empath at 1:23 PM on July 19, 2007

I cannot even wear decorated white t-shirts due to my level of disgust, horror, nausea, and minor weight gain I experience every fucking time that fucking "Hey There, Delilah, I'm a Whiney Douchebag" song comes on the radio, which in the Infinite Wisdom of local and XM DJs seems to be once every four seconds or so.

This song gets stuck in my head for hours on end, keeping me awake at night, filled with rage that my sleep is being disturbed by my fixating on an endless refrain. Oh, God, I feel the song coming back as I type this. It's crawling up out of the tension in my shoulders, slipping plunking emo fingers up the back of my scalp.

I'm not sure how much longer I have. The song has grown stronger, so much stronger, that all my usual weapons to dislodge it are growing weaker and weaker. "Tom's Diner" is useless. "Whoomp, What's it like in New York City" has been somehow compromised. Even the Macarena is crumbling fast.

The song is stealing my memories. I can't remember my fifth birthday. Or my thirteenth. I can remember longing for some chick in New York, though. It's all I can think of now. I'm a lyrical Algernon. Soon there will be nothing left. This can't be happening! Our friends would all make fun of us. I've got so much left to say.

Hey there Delilah here's to you.
This ones for you.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 1:29 PM on July 19, 2007 [3 favorites]

Chocolate Rain just blew my mind.
posted by jefbla at 1:29 PM on July 19, 2007

2006 was definitely out of control.
posted by Shakeer at 1:32 PM on July 19, 2007

I nominate "The Underdog" by Spoon.

I'll second that.
posted by signalnine at 1:40 PM on July 19, 2007

OK, so is that Rihanna song intentionally distorted and shite-sounding?
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 2:05 PM on July 19, 2007

We're the Mesopotamians
Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh
posted by Foosnark at 2:17 PM on July 19, 2007

Chocolate Rain!
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 2:18 PM on July 19, 2007

I cannot even wear decorated white t-shirts due to my level of disgust, horror, nausea, and minor weight gain I experience every fucking time that fucking "Hey There, Delilah, I'm a Whiney Douchebag" song comes on the radio

Oh, come on. How can you deny the genius needed to create lyrics like:

Hey there Delilah
I've got so much left to say
If every simple song I wrote to you
Would take your breath away
I'd write it all
Even more in love with me you'd fall
We'd have it all

Emphasis mine.

Headache, nausea, and disgust mine, as well.
posted by dersins at 2:23 PM on July 19, 2007

Thanks to my work-neighbor I've heard both these songs. I really like it when Umbrella comes on (which I didn't realize was that song... the descriptions I've heard of it didn't make it click for me). I try to find something to do elsewhere when Beautiful Girls comes on.

Some songs remind me of certain times, but some songs immediately pop to mind when I think of past periods. For instance, when I hear Feel Good Inc. by Gorillaz I don't think of the summer of 2005, but when I think of that summer that song often pops into my head.
posted by Kattullus at 2:35 PM on July 19, 2007

Chocolate Raaaaaaain, it's been rockin the box for weeks now
posted by rxrfrx at 2:59 PM on July 19, 2007

And here I thought it was that Peter, Bjorn and John song that I can't get away from. I even heard it in a strip bar last month....
posted by lumpenprole at 3:23 PM on July 19, 2007

This is my anthem for summer. Holy childhood nostalgia-inducement, batman.
posted by Mach3avelli at 3:28 PM on July 19, 2007

Ah, screw it, my favorite songs so far this year:

And So I Watch You From Afar - The Voiceless
The Shadow Project - Don't Be a Stranger
Airiel - Sugar Crystals (Featuring Ulrich Schnauss)
World's End Girlfriend - 100 Years of Choke
Tulsa Drone - The Catch
Port-Roytal - Putin vs. Valery
Actor/Model - Laptop Dancing
Holy Fuck - Lovely Allen
Cut City - Just Pornograpy (For M.E.)
Moving Mountains - Cover the Roots, Lower the Stems
pg.lost - Yes I am
charlatantrum. - Triomphe de L'Obelisque
Giardini di Miro - Self Help
Explosions in the Sky - Catastrophe and the Cure
!!! - Bend Over Beethoven

And my favorite non-2007 discovery:

Decoder Ring - Serac
posted by Mach3avelli at 3:42 PM on July 19, 2007

I love good pop music, but neither of those songs posted with the NYT article are it--that is some basic, unimaginative crap right there.
posted by LooseFilter at 4:01 PM on July 19, 2007

2006 was also butt naked Wednesdays.
posted by ao4047 at 4:12 PM on July 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

I listen to podcasts of Over The Edge and Puzzling Evidence in my car nowadays. In fact, if I had money, I'd consider donating to them as a kinda thank you for being so cool. Maybe someday I'll be able to afford to do that.

Song of the Summer? People still have those? Wasn't that a silly gimmick decades ago to get people to buy trendy songs that they'd forget by fall? People still pay attention to the lie that is Top Forty Radio? People still listen to the radio?

I don't believe it. Pull the other one.
posted by ZachsMind at 5:07 PM on July 19, 2007

Song of the summer? It's a tossup between Other Girls and Are You Sensation, but either way Tigercity has it.
posted by wemayfreeze at 6:04 PM on July 19, 2007

Song of every summer, cool cats.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:38 PM on July 19, 2007

Not popular enough to be a Song of Summer in any sense, but this is probably the track that sticks out the most from the last 2-3 months.
posted by sparkletone at 7:27 PM on July 19, 2007

I thought I could keep myself from linking there from the blue forever, but I guess not....

Onion beats NYT by one day.
posted by gimonca at 7:37 PM on July 19, 2007

Awesome. And I thought the chocolate weather patterns went out with Chocolate Thunder and Black Lightning. Now the circle is complete.
posted by kid ichorous at 8:47 PM on July 19, 2007

summer's already over? ... and here i thought we had two months left of it
posted by pyramid termite at 9:26 PM on July 19, 2007

Remi Nicole.

That is all.
posted by davros42 at 12:14 PM on July 20, 2007