Rightie, my choices are:
The perfect summer playlist – you can dance to it, you can relax to it, it makes you feel happy. Right? Then where better to start than Curtis Mayfield’s stone cold classic Move on Up? WHAT. A. TUNE. It's played at Arsenal after we win, so reminds me of the good times; trumpets blazing, it's impossible not to get into - whether it's head nodding or hand-drumming to that goddamn bongo rhythm you'll proper enjoy it, although you might crash the car (I recommend trying the Single Ladies dance with it (I'm not joking - do it)). Perhaps it would benefit from losing a bit of the extended instrumental, at least for a mixtape, but it's hard not to forgive him when you see how amazing his outfit is in that video. This song is good enough to dissuade me from putting Isaac Hayes’ Shaft on the playlist, which is probably the best compliment you can pay a song.
It’s hard to be a member of my family without liking The Kinks (Dad used to live next door to Dave (the guitarist with the luscious locks)) and Sunny Afternoon is candidate for my favourite song of all time as well as being just generally amazing. Sit back in your hammock and enjoy whilst you're basking in the sun. Far too good to not be mentioned.
Blur are my favourite band - and Sunday Sunday is a song from their best album. This was such a hard choice: I only allowed myself a single Blur and picked it above For Tomorrow - also on Modern Life is Rubbish - and Girls and Boys on the basis that it doesn't need to be 'listened to' to be enjoyed (you can dance) but neither is it limited by in depth listening. It features on the best 'passage' of the album - Blue Jeans / Chemical World / Intermission / Sunday Sunday / Oily Water - and manages individual excellence without interrupting its flow. It also has some ace slide guitar at the end. Amazing but not overshadowing? Playlisted.
Beach Boys are a quintessentially summer band, and one of those which I discovered through the medium of 50p charity shop records. I've stuck to it: I have 4 Best of The Beach Boys 12"s and only one full album, Pet Sounds, and that on a scratched CD. I originally had Girls Aloud's Love Machine in this slot, but you can't really leave BBs off a summer playlist and Love Machine was a very definite sixth choice.
Does everyone here like Villagers? Set the Tigers free is a lovely song to relax to. Every precedent for a superb summer song is filled: sounds so clean, consistently fresh and amazing on vinyl. I think that the line 'I'll be cheering from the sidelines / with a sandwich and a beer' clinched its place here. Let's not forget we're in Britain, and embrace the line 'and all at once I step outside / into the wind and rain' as an example of it working brilliantly for sitting around inside during a humid storm. Sounds amazing in the morning.
Things I very nearly put in include The Girl under the Tree, Zorbing and Girls on Film. Does that sentence count as cheating? I didn’t even consider The Beautiful South because the choice of song would have been nigh-on-impossible.
What are your favourite summer songs/what would be your playlist/how would you amend mine? I'd love to hear from you on this issue, which is one of my fave questions - love a good mixtape - so comment comment comment
Chaaaars
I think these songs would be good summer soundtracks:
ReplyDeletePumped up kicks - Foster the people
The city - Patrick Wolf
You'll be mine - The pierces
O Dear - The honey brothers
:)