A summer pop song should be everything the phrase suggests: poppy, frothy, bouncing fun. Lyrically, it should at least make sense (and be easy to memorize) but not deliver anything too weighty. And it should definitely have a beat but not a heavy one. And for goodness’ sakes, it should be be able to deliver you from a rip-roaring bad mood the absolute second it starts.
So here are the five contenders for best pop song of this summer. And yes, I own every single one of them:
Fifth Place “Please Don’t Stop the Music” by Rihanna
It’s as if it was born fully created from the dance floor … the club beat, the endless remix possibilities, the early Michael Jackson sampling. Why it’s not first? It’s from like a year ago. But hey, the good stuff never gets old
(Have to apologize for the embedded video. The official video has embedding disabled so you’ll have to make do with this kind of crappy version)
Fourth Place “All Summer Long” by Kid Rock
This is a song about sitting on your porch and drinking beer. Nothing is more summer is that. Why it’s not first? Well, you can’t really dance to it. And the video is everything that’s wrong with Kid Rock videos (or maybe just videos in general). And he essentially just took Lynyrd Skynyrd’s best stuff and slapped some of his own shit on top of it. So really, it was the best summer pop song about 100 years ago.
Third place “Low” by Flo Rida featuring T-Pain
Everyone — EVERYONE — from the six-year-old girl next door to my grocery store cashier was singing this song. And what’s not to love about a song that celebrates baggy sweatpants, reeboks with the straps and big booties. Why it isn’t first? It peaked in late spring.
Second Place “I Kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry
The video is kinda lame but summer songs like this aren’t about the video … they are all about teen and twenty-somethings dancing their throbbing little hearts out in a packed, sweaty club at 1am. And it doesn’t hurt that the lyrics have a bunch of conservatives up in knots. Why isn’t it first? Don’t know if it will still be as fun to listen to next year as it was this year.
First Place “American Boy” by Estelle featuring Kanye West
Light, trippy, built for a summer day on the beach, a British songbird and Kanye West. It’s perfect.
1 response so far ↓
1 urbanmenno // Jul 30, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Just to clarify here people: I’m very aware that Rihanna’s song is like a year old! That was the whole point of why it’s not first.
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