Jun 15, 2014 4 min read

What’s your summer soundtrack?

Whether it’s music from a specific year, a special vacation or a solitary summer day, everyone can recall at least one song that evokes thoughts of a memorable sunshine-soaked day between June and August.

Radio stations gladly nudge those memories along by filtering in former summer hits. Oldies stations pump out “Summer in the City,” “Come on Down to My Boat” and any number of Beach Boys songs; rockers focus on “School’s Out,” “Life in the Fast Lane” and “Sledgehammer”; and current Top 40 stations blast back to “California Gurls,” “Party Rock Anthem” and “Call Me Maybe.” Whether we’re ready or not, last summer’s overplayed “Blurred Lines” and “Get Lucky” will be temporarily reprised as well.

Summer song memories are precipitated by a moment in time – how high the song charted is irrelevant. Yet, over the past few years, predicting the “song of the summer” has become a phenomenon – and not just with music columnists. “The Today Show” anchors make their picks annually; so do “USA Today,” “Entertainment Weekly” and dozens of other publications. Even the serious-minded Time magazine is conducting a summer music poll.

How important has the song of summer become? Well-regarded journalist Sean Ross noted in a recent column that “consumer press speculation on the topic starts in the previous fall. … Labels have geared more of their release schedule to summer, even to the point where the first quarter is no longer as exciting for new music.”

Billboard, by the way, leads off its predictions with, “The speculation has been running rampant …”

Really?

Perhaps America is just looking for a counterpart to Britain’s long-running fascination with predicting what song will be No. 1 on Christmas Day.

My past success with picking the song of summer has veered off course as much as a Frisbee on a windy beach. Given that most years the winning tune is teen-oriented, I was pretty set this year on “She Looks So Perfect” – otherwise known as “The Underwear Song” – by Five Seconds of Summer.

It peaked last week.

Shazam song recognition service, which published its top 10 “Sounds of Summer” list a few weeks ago, picked Ed Sheeran’s “Sing,” which likewise appears to be burning out prematurely.

For his part, Ross picked “Fancy” by hot artist Iggy Azalea. If the crowd at the opening of the Washington Rebellion’s home season was any indication, he’s right. When the song blared over the loudspeaker, the sing-along was louder than that for “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Since my pick fizzled, I’m going to exercise a mulligan and go with Luke Bryan’s “Play It Again,” which is a longshot, to say the least. I’m considering the amazing crossover success of country’s “Cruise” last summer and the growing popularity of Bryan with younger females, who just happen to be the target audience of radio.

More than likely, though, my personal song of summer for 2014 will be something I hear on my one day at the beach in August. Even if it’s “Margaritaville.”

Ross also noted in his column an eerie coincidence concerning Michael Jackson’s “Love Never Felt So Good,” now looming as his first major posthumous hit. It was written by Paul Anka, who also wrote the first posthumous releases for Buddy Holly (“It Doesn’t Matter Anymore”) and Elvis Presley (his version of “My Way”). Pointing out that Jackson’s first posthumous release was actually the mid-charting “This Is It” changes nothing. Anka wrote that song, too.

In the last few weeks, several artists passed on with scant, if any, notice in the media. They include Jerry Vale (“Have You Looked Into Your Heart”), Ed Gagliardi (original bassist with Foreigner), Deon Jackson (“Love Makes the World Go Round”), Paul Goddard (original bass player with the Atlanta Rhythm Section), Larry Ramos (musician/singer with the Association and New Christry Minstrels), Jerry LaCroix (Rare Earth, Blood, Sweat & Tears), Jessica Cleaves (founding member of Friends of Distinction) and Randy Coven (Orpheus).