It’s Not the Heat, It’s the Hummability
As the last month of summer slips away, I have begun to accept a sad and foreboding truth: this year has not produced a Song of the Summer. You know what I'm talking about. That upbeat, strobing anthem that blasts from every car radio. The one that gets everyone dancing in the club, at the bad wedding, or late, late at night in a dive bar. Last year it was "Crazy," by Gnarls Barkly, or maybe even Nelly Furtado's "Promiscuous Girl." Past August anthems include "Hot in Herre" and even "No Scrubs" (which I didn't really like). One more rule: the song of the summer always has some sort of hip-hop element. As a coworker wisely remarked, even as rock continues to let us down, hip-hop usually delivers a song that can bring us all together. Now it appears hip-hop is in trouble as well. Rihanna's "Umbrella" was a weak contender.
The New York Times, I just realized, weighed in on this subject in July. The author seems to be making several arguments: that the Song of the Summer never really existed, that every hit is a summer song, that the whole idea is just a collective emotional daydream. I think it just might be that pop music—first rock, now hip-hop—is losing its grip on summer. (I'm pretty much stealing this idea from the aforementioned coworker.) And I totally disagree with these bloggers who think Feist could qualify.
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Linked From: August 14th, 2007Washington City Paper: News & Features: Blogs
5:42 pm[...] Light,” the Bruce Springsteen–meets–Andrew Lloyd Webber opus that, speaking of summer songs, was a mainstay on local album rock stations in the summer of ’78. (Meat’s duet partner [...]
2:47 pm
I can't explain it, but I STILL like Umbrella.
3:34 pm
Same here I feeling "Umbrella" by Rihanna.. Everybody has been singing it and it's coming from many cars. It was a hit before summer came too
4:36 pm
I say the Song of the Summer contest was completely de-railed by "I'm A Flirt." It is a true summer jam in every sense, but it peaked waaay to early to be crowned "Song of the Summer," yet remained in radio rotation long enough to make all the June/July music in contention for the title seem lackluster in comparison. Blame R. Kelly!