Published at 7:00 AM on May 13, 2009

By Nick Marino

Time of the Season: Five Great Summer Songs (Plus Five Crappy Ones That Make Us Wish for Winter)

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We can feel it coming in the air tonight, dear reader. Summertime. The sweaty season, the swell season. The season of the shark—or maybe not even the season of the shark, but a great band wrote a great song with that title a few years ago on an album called Summer Sun, so it totally counts. 


Anyway. 

Summer is almost here! So we hereby present a playlist of summer songs to get you excited while you're stockpiling your frozen treats, and a bonus list of songs that should be banished to a closet along with Borat's bathing suit. 

Good summer songs
1. "Summertime," by The Sundays—A wonderful bit of shimmery pop by a band that seems utterly forgotten not so very long after recording this song.  
2. "A Summer Song," by Chad and Jeremy—As we were listening to this gorgeous folk-pop classic, we got a sick little sense of deja vu that years ago we wrote a list of summer songs very similar to this one, and that "A Summer Song" (which is about as quintessential as summer songs get) was of course on that list, too, which meant we were just recycling ourselves. But we're pretty sure that even if we did write a list like this once upon a time, it didn't include meta-commentary. So we think we're good. And we're going to conclude this blurb, as well as the meta-commentary portion of our program, by pointing out that that this song was in a movie called Rushmore, so that's probably where you first heard it, even if you don't remember because you were so busy crushing on Jason Schwartzman and/or Olivia Williams.     
3. "Summertime," by various artists—Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong did a damned fine version of this Gershwin classic. Do your homework, kids, and check it out.
4. "Long Hot Summer Night," by Jimi Hendrix—Not his most famous song. But it's nice and loose, maybe just a little sloppy, which somehow seems appropriate. If everyone winds up starched and dried out, it wasn't really that long or hot of a summer night, now was it? 

5. "The New Workout Plan," by Kanye West—A helpful bit of motivation for those looking to impress on the beach. 

Awful summer songs

1. "Summertime," by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince—We cannot count the number of times we saw this video on MTV, but we know we would like to have those precious minutes (hours, days...) back so we could go play outside instead. 

2. "Summer," by Alien Ant Farm—Ha ha ha ha. When is the last time anybody thought about these clowns? We had definitely repressed the memory of their godawful Michael Jackson cover, and we didn't even know this song existed until we started compiling this list. We have now listened to it exactly once, and will never listen to it again. Fill your very own once-in-a-lifetime quota by clicking here. 

3. "Boys of Summer," by Don Henley—Just that opening riff gives us a terrible shiver. And then Henley's pinched voice comes in, and we realize we would rather listen to Alien Ant Farm. 

4. "Summer of '69," by Bryan Adams—You know what, go back and listen: It's not that bad. Well, OK, it's pretty bad. But it has its charms. The bridge is nice. Adams sounds like he is, in fact, still in a band that's trying real hard. The song is in the neighborhood of John Mellencamp and even, dare we say it, Springsteen. We've thought for a long time that Ryan Adams should get a sense of humor and just play the thing live. People would love it. 

5. "Summer Breeze," by Seals & Crofts—Not sure what it is about cheesy white-guy rockers from the '70s and '80s, but they sure did seem to record a lot of bad songs featuring the word "summer." This is one. More than once, watching the video, we wondered if Mike Love was in the band. That would make it even worse.  

Weigh in with your own favorite—and least favorite—summer songs in the comments section below. 

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