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.

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Lately, I’ve been totally engrossed by Britain’s crop of talented and attention-demanding female artists. While Lily Allen is engaging with her music/persona in her own way, there is something incredibly addictive and absorbing about Amy Winehouse that separates her from the pack. Is it because she is more of a train wreck? A paparazzi wet dream of booze, brawls, and possible drug usage? I’d be lying to myself by saying the shaky public persona isn’t a tad bit fascinating. In fact, googling her name will result in thousands of gossip sites devoted to her latest exploits.

Her latest album Back To Black was finally released here in the States last month and it debuted at #7 on the top 200, the highest ever debut position for a British female artist at the time (Joss Stone’s new album peaked at # 2 recently). The album is a ’50′s girl group throwback with a hip-hop twist of attitude and spirit. Her voice is classic and nostalgic but yet it’s the furthest thing from dated.

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A recent editorial from our friends at the RIAA. Basically, the gist here is that their recent actions and aggressive stands against music downloading stems from a genuine concern to maintain jobs and artistic rights, as well as a moral obligation to teach a generation of college students (the primary target of the article) to steal for everything.

First off, where’d the focus on the elderly, the crippled, and the recently deceased go? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go look up some of the recent news regarding people targeted with legal actions by the RIAA.

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I’ve been around, so to speak.

Not in that sort of dirty way that your mother and high school sex-ed videos warn you about, but in the sense that I’ve traveled. When I was younger I lived in Greece, and had the chance to go to England and then Germany for about a week each at different points. The fact that I moved from Queens to live in Greece for almost 7 years more or less based on my mother’s suggestion that it might be fun is probably an indication of the latent desire to see something new within me.

Since then, I’ve been to the aforementioned UK and Germany, I moved back to the US, Canada (Vancouver specifically, so it wasn’t just a quick drive over the border from New York either), back to Greece again a few times, and this past summer went to Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. I’d still like to maybe see France, Japan, go to Canada again…you get the point. Even the potential to meet some new people in a new neighborhood is fun to me, because it’s someone I’ve never met before in a place I’ve never seen before. Sometimes I’ll just wander around New York and look up at the buildings to see what it’d be like to be a tourist in my own hometown.

It’s something you see a lot if you find yourself drawn towards independent music, movies, etc. A desire to travel and see the world, or at least get out of your current surroundings, even for a bit. Just to make sure there’s more out there than the city limits and endless miles of highway. And while I’m not as big a traveler as others in the punk rock community (trust me on that, I’m a homebody compared to most), I’d like to think that I know what they’re talking about when they just wanna get out.

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(photo courtesy of thepolicetour.com)

I know this news may have already reached it’s saturation point. It’s been blogged about by cooler people all over this internet box, discussed on morning talk shows, promoted on Q104 commercials, and there’s even a full article about it in today’s ny times. But I fucking love The Police, and now it’s my turn.

I always thought I was born 20 years too late, and The Police is one of the reasons. I was 15 when I finally fell in love. I had heard their songs a thousand times before, but it wasn’t until then that I finally listened. The bass lines, the frenetic drumming, the high-pitched boy singing about messages in bottles and prostitutes and being the omega man–I wished (and prayed) that I lived in 1982. But the year 2000 was quite a few years past the zenith of the Police, and by that point the band was just the former biggest band in the world, and nowhere near reuniting. Sting was riding high on his Brand New Day success, scoffing anytime he was asked the requisite question of if the three boys would ever tour again.

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