Summer in music. A classic, to be declined in many different emotional nuances.
It's not just the sunny season of Californian surfing and sunshine popwalks on the shore and the saudade. Psychedelic estrangements, mystical ceremonies, poolside dances, but also widespread nostalgia and melancholy lurk under the hot sun. A theme that has fascinated musicians of disparate genres in every era. Here then, to wish you a happy August holiday, this is ours playlist-monsters of fifty songs that contain the term “summer” in the title.
There is the endless summer of dreams sixtiesideally embodied by the golden California of the Beach Boys, The Doors and Love, as well as by the warm wind of Frank Sinatra (“Summer Wind”) and his daughter Nancy, who in the company of Lee Hazlewood opens the collection with the poignant “Summer Wine”. Also in the Sixties, there were also those who revisited a classic like “Summertime” by George Gershwin (Janis Joplin) in an acid-blues key, or those who magically evoked the concept of saudade at a samba pace, like the Brazilian duo Astrud Gilberto-Walter Wanderley, in their “So Nice (Summer Samba)”.
But there is also the summer told in their own way by the great British rock groups: from the historic ones that dominated the 60s and 70s (The Who, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Electric Light Orchestra) to those of the following decade, under the banner of new wave, synth-pop and new cool (Simple Minds, The Stranglers, U2, Alarm, Eurythmics, Alphaville, Durutti Column, Xtc, The Cure, Style Council), all equally ensnared by the suggestions of a season that is both sunny and melancholic, be it the one painted in dark electronic colors of “Someone Somewere In Summertime” or the one from rock anthem of “Rain In The Summertime”, be it the German one (“Summer In Berlin”) or the English one (“English Summer”).
A season that also bewitched outsider singer-songwriters such as Tim Hardin and Elvis Costello, vibrant overseas rockers – from the Blue Oyster Cult of “This Ain't The Summer Of Love” to Bryan Adams of the everlasting anthem “The Summer Of '69” – as well as magnetic chanteuse of every era, from Kate Bush to Aimee Mann via Lana Del Rey of “Summertime Sadness”.
There is a substantial component missing blackwhich ranges from the funk of Sly & The Family Stone (“Hot Fun In The Summertime”), Isaac Hayes (“Summer In The City”) and Kool & The Gang (“Summer Madness”) to the suggestions disco music of Chic's “A Warm Summer Night” and the immortal soul of Stevie Wonder (“Summer Soft”), until arriving at the court of Prince grappling – for a change – with “Sex In The Summer”.
But summer is also the season of carefree pop anthems, such as those of Abba in “Summer Night City”, of the stainless couple John Travolta & Olivia Newton of “Grease” (“Summer Nights”) and the irresistible Bananarama of the hit (summer, of course) “Cruel Summer”, which hypnotized the 80's generation.
It seemed like another catchphrase and that's it, but instead ex-Eagles Don Henley's song “The Boys Of Summer” took on unpredictable consequences, which curiously would become one of the greatest inspirations of hypnagogic pop 20 years later. Term coined by a critic of The Wire, David Keenan, to indicate a tired and tarnished 80s imagery. “A music that bears witness to memories, to memories of adolescent summers between evening bonfires, fiery sunsets and episodes of Miami Vice on television”, as Antonio Ciarletta and Giuliano Delli Paoli write in the special published on this webzine.
Naturally, the trend is also inevitable alternative pop-rock: a large group of singers of the summer season which includes the debutants Pavement of “Summer Babe (Winter Version)”, the very inspired Belle And Sebastian of “The Boy With The Arab Strap” (“A Summer Wasting”) and the amazing Fiery Furnaces of the EP of the same name (“Here Comes The Summer”), but also bands like Blonde Redhead, Death Cab For Cutie, Yo La Tengo and Flaming Lips, as well as the late Rem and Big Star. And if the Colleen of “Summer Water” ranges between folk and electronic, two gurus who outline synthetic summer landscapes with their magical touch definitely lean towards the latter, such as Christian Fennesz (“Endless Summer”) and John Foxx, now out of Ultravox for some time and joined by The Maths in “Summerland”.
All songs with the term “summer” in their titles, except one, in which the Italian “Estate” appears. But it is a dutiful exception, as it is the historic song by Bruno Martino, one of the definitive reflections on the most loved/hated season.
All that remains is to invite you to listen and thank our editor Marco Bercella, the moral inspirer of this playlist with his titanic selection from the “Hundred Ways To Say Summer” compilation.
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
