Feel it burn

The summer single is a communal experience that reminds us music is meant to be shared. (Jeff Gentner/Getty Images)

The way we listen to music changes with the season. During the cold months, we tend to enjoy it alone. Things shift in summer: by migrating to outdoor patios, backyard barbecues and open-air concerts — or doing something as reflexive as lowering our car windows — music becomes a communal experience. Sure, we’ve all complained about that jackass blasting Sean Paul from his tricked-out Honda Civic, but he’s merely acknowledging — with entirely too much bass — that music is meant to be shared.

Is there such a thing as a summer single? Most definitely. Some songs have a summery vibe, which could mean anything from a wocka-wocka guitar lick to a breezy chorus. It’s not something you can readily describe. In most cases, it’s what the song represents. Because many of us spend the summer months lolling near water, sipping fizzy drinks, worshipping the sun and otherwise shunning responsibility, songs released between May and September simply have more positive associations than those released in November or February.

The best summer singles have crossover appeal. Melody is an obvious boon. Some songs are so emphatically tuneful that they require only minimal orchestration. Consider Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy, one of last summer’s runaway hits. Oh, sure, it features some lovely string textures, but it’s basically a duet between singer Cee-Lo and an old-fashioned Motown bass line. Feist’s My Moon My Man, one of this year’s contenders, is equally austere. Built on only two chords, it proves that the best pop songs are often the most economical. My Moon My Man features a strutting, quarter-note piano motif, some slinky verses and a smashing chorus.

Another nominee this summer is Ne-Yo’s Because of You, a smooth evocation of Thriller-era Michael Jackson. And if you can ignore the fact that singer Adam Levine always sounds like someone’s pinching his larynx, Maroon 5’s Makes Me Wonder — with its strong echoes of Hall & Oates — has to be considered a textbook hit.

Summer is a time for road trips and up-tempo tracks always invigorate the ride. Shut Up & Drive, the second single off of Rihanna’s chart-storming album Good Girl Gone Bad, is admirably direct. Over the chord progression from New Order’s Blue Monday, the Barbadian R&B singer likens herself to a very powerful automobile: “I’m a fine-tuned supersonic speed machine.” (Remember when the Beach Boys used to rhapsodize about girls like they were cars, and cars like they were girls?) Never Again, the latest hit from former American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson, begins with a portentous guitar arpeggio and then explodes into a venomous chorus about a duplicitous lover; like her 2005 hit Since U Been Gone, it produces a giddy high.

Many summer singles qualify as what some music critics call “event pop” — loud, vehement, often gimmicky tunes that may not be melodic, but are always audacious. Sexy samples also go a long way. Destiny’s Child’s Bootylicious, arguably the hit of the summer of 2001, borrowed the snaky guitar riff from Stevie Nicks’s Edge of Seventeen and gave young women a new dis to rebuff unwanted men (“I don’t think you’re ready/for this jelly”). Beyoncé’s 2003 single Crazy in Love has proven quite influential. Produced by Rich Harrison, it features a pulverizing horn sample from the Chi-Lites’ Are You My Woman (Tell Me So), ecstatic vocals, an unrelenting beat and a breakdown rhyme from Jay-Z. Two summers later, Harrison repeated his success with Amerie’s 1 Thing, which also features a horn-heavy ’70s funk sample (the Meters’ cover of Oh, Calcutta!), ecstatic vocals, an unrelenting beat — but, alas, no Jay-Z.

Rihanna's ridiculous but infectious Umbrella may be the summer hit of 2007. (Evan Agostini/Getty Images)

Rapper Kanye West only ever makes event pop, and this summer it’s Stronger. Kanye’s latest joint takes the android refrain from Daft Punk’s 2001 hit Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger and pads it out with some plush keyboards and his usual messianic bluster. Another example is Eve’s Tambourine. Helmed by producer Swizz Beatz, the song features a militaristic drumbeat, siren sounds and a hopped-up vocal sample (“Shake your tambourine and go get yourself a whistle”) from the 1974 hit Blow Your Whistle by Chuck Brown & the Soul Searchers. Eve drops some brusque rhymes, though they’re really quite secondary. Neither Stronger nor Tambourine is a model of Johnny Mercer-calibre songwriting, but they do make a glorious racket.

Pop music thrives on listener recall, and an annoying hook is often more effective than a really satisfying one — just look at Fergie’s London Bridge (2006), Aqua’s Barbie Girl (1997) or, really, anything by Vengaboys.

Avril Lavigne’s recent single, Girlfriend, sounds like a cheerleader chant composed by Rachel McAdams’ character in Mean Girls — albeit with none of her cunning. It’s clichéd and clownish and refuses to budge from the Billboard Top 10. Florida singer T-Pain has owned the charts with the equally vexing Buy You a Drank (Shawty Snappin’), a mawkish slow jam that conceals T’s painful voice under a layer of computer effects.

The most grating example may turn out to be this summer’s biggest hit: Rihanna’s Umbrella. Not only is the title a bizarre metaphor for sex, but the song contains this ridiculous chorus: “You can stand under my um-ber-ella/-ella, -ella, ay, ay/under my um-ber-ella/-ella, -ella, ay, ay.” The refrain is utterly daft — and yet refuses to leave my head. My feeling is that, like a summer tan, it’s going to linger until well past Labour Day.

Andre Mayer writes about the arts for CBC.ca.

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