A discussion with a fellow classmate last night brought up the interesting subject of “summer records.” I’d never really thought of it because it almost always comes to me naturally, but I realized I didn’t have one either.
Just what makes a summer album anyway? It’s that one single album (or in some cases, a single band, which expands into “summer band”) that can carry you throughout the entire summer. And not only that, but it’s timeless, arguably applicable through multiple summers. Because let’s face it, we’re not that young anymore.

I, like so many others, spend most of my summers working with occasional time off when I can grab it. Not to mention summer school, a necessary option for the frantic graduate student on the go like me. Gone are the summers of hanging out all day at the beach, doing nothing all day and hanging out at the deli, or bar or in some lover’s hideaway thinking you’re oh-so-smart and clever all night.

Nope. Instead there’s morning subway commutes in the heat and humidity, with only a couple of furtive free moments stolen on Friday nights and weekends, which while it makes the freedom so much sweeter, makes me long for Calvin & Hobbes-esque old-fashioned summer freedom, when you can even forget what day of the week it is. After all, you wouldn’t be in school anymore, which is the greatest gift you can give a kid.
Back on topic. The point here is that a summer album would have to be able to carry you throughout any sort of situation that your summer is taking, be it one of toil and turmoil or bliss under the shade of the old tree in the backyard.
A few past ones come to mind. Last summer, I listened to This Is Unity Music (Hopeless) by Common Rider and …We Are Still Alive (Deep Elm) by Latterman a lot. I took both of those albums with me on my road trip through the Southwest. Last summer was one of highs and lows, and listening to “One Ton” by Common Rider blaring through my friend Ingrid’s car speakers, as we drove along the endless and featureless highways of New Mexico, subsiding solely on coffee and truck stop snacks, is a precious memory of that time.
The summer before that, I was in Greece, visiting family. A dusty little village on an island in the Aegean, where nothing happens besides beautiful sunsets and church festivities; it almost drove me batshit crazy. However, I had a hidden weapon. Everything Went Numb (Victory), by the excellent Streetlight Manifesto. I spent a lot of days buried in a notebook or playing game after game of solitaire with the ska/reggae/jazz dealings of Streetlight playing in my headphones, keeping me company and making sure that I didn’t totally lose my mind for the three weeks I was there. Is it possible to listen to an album at least two or three times a day every day for three weeks? No, I did listen to other stuff obviously (I think I also had Slayer’s Reign In Blood (American) with me or something equally brutal) but that wasn’t my main jam. Everything Went Numb was and it made that summer so much more bearable I can’t even fully describe it.
It hasn’t come to me yet though. Not for this summer. However, there are a few contenders. The classic Crash Diagnostic (New American Dream) by Discount, or perhaps the upcoming digital-only solo album by Ben Weasel, These Ones Are Bitter (Mendota Recording Company). Or maybe it’s something I haven’t discovered yet at all. The summer’s still young. Technically, it’s not even here yet (as I write this, it is the 24th of May). But the sun is blazing down on me as I wait for the bus to go to work in the morning so in spirit, it’s already here. Lordy knows the weather has been insane enough this past year that some good-old fashioned summer weather is welcomed.
But there I go again off-topic. So yeah, a summer album has yet to come to me. This morning I thought it might be This Sinking Ship (Fat Wreck Chords) by Smoke Or Fire, but the more I think about it the less sure I am. After all, do I really need to think of it as “my summer album”? Or is it more natural, something that I’ll only really notice later on (like now)?
It’ll be a soundtrack to three months unlike any others, songs that will carry me through whatever oddball nonsense I tend to find myself in. Be it wandering the streets of some odd neighborhood at 2 in the morning, not quite ready to call a cab and go home, or maybe sitting on my stoop watching the sun go down with some friends.
I’m sure it will come to me. I probably just won’t know it until the songs and summer memories are perfectly in sync, which of course, is always when summer is almost gone.)

Tags: essay, summer listening //