Top 10 Summer Anthems

Perhaps the greatest thing about summer, besides the possibility of drinking in the sun at noon judgment-free, is the outdoor musical festival. You get several bands, Vitamin D, and the afore-mentioned unshameful daytime drinking all in one. Unfortunately, the tickets can also be rather expensive and the masses rather obnoxious. So if you are feeling misanthropic or are just plain recession broke, your best option may instead be a jaunt through the iTunes music store to download a summer-worthy playlist.

What is summer music? Well, I’ll tell you what it’s not. Summer music is not anything by Arcade Fire or Tool. Summer music is not anything that seems as though it could accompany a French film about a curiously charming coquette of a waitress and a writer’s-blocked young depressive. It doesn’t need to be particularly good, have indie cred, or even mention the beach. If you want to be reductive, consider whether a song seems as though it could have a girl in a tank top jumping on her bed or a slobbering dog hanging its head out the window of a roadtripping pickup truck in its music video. If so, it can be summer music. So in the name of all that is young, bouncy, and popsicle-stained, here are our picks for the Top 10 Summer Anthems.

1. “California Love” by 2Pac
East coast, west coast, who cares? This song is to the beach what tequila is to a margarita.

2. “Roadhouse Blues” by The Doors
It’s impossible to be blue when you listen to this classic Jim Morrison masterpiece.

3. “Paper Planes” by M.I.A.
Sticks and stones and weed and… the beach?

4. “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynard Skynard
I’m pretty sure it’s summer all the time in Alabama, but then again, I haven’t crossed the Mason-Dixon line in quite a while.

5. “Calabria” by Enur
A popular cross-genre club anthem that can make it seem like summer regardless of season.

6. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by the Rolling Stones
But if you try sometimes, you might just find, you get what you need to deal with the mosquito bites and heat.

7. “Tush” by ZZ Top
In this song, old ZZ sings, “I’m just lookin’ for some tush.” Yeah, you and seventy-five percent of the men cruising the beach every summer Z.

8. “Life is a Highway” Tom Cochrane
This is just one of those songs that begs raising a Budweiser, Miller, or other equally crappy American lager and singing

9. “I Shot the Sheriff” by Bob Marley
Any beach playlist that eschews Bob Marley is a bit suspect in my book, if not downright oblivious to its genre.

10. “No Games” by Serani
The first several times I heard this song, I was convinced that Serani was singing “I just wanna say, ‘Hey, hey!'” He wasn’t and in fact it’s pretty damn difficult deciphering what the hell he is singing half the time, but I’ll be damned if this isn’t a quintessential beach song.