Summertime Tunage

Technically it's not Summer til Tuesday but if you judge by weather, it's been Summer here for almost a month. Temps have been up and down but mostly up. Which would be easier to take if the 87'F wasn't accompanied by 80% humidity.

Aside from heat, the other sign of Summer is pop music galore. At the top of Billboard's weekly big ten right now is Adele's "Rollin' in the Deep", the obligatory "we could've had it all" (it's the line that's repeated many times in this song) farewell-to-romance song. Unremarkable, but Adele has some pipes. At #2 sits the Black Eyed Peas' "I Just Can't Get Enough", another hiphop tribute to sex with the usual tired old axioms. Katy Perry's "E.T" is #3, and I'm beginning to think all of Katy's songs are actually one long song being chopped into small bits. She has a lovely voice; it's a shame she's so limited to standard manufactured BS.

In the #4 spot is Bruno Mars with "The Lazy Song", the first summer fun, no school, pre-responsibility hit. It's reggae lite, kinda mindless, very summery. Pitbull, with some help, comes in at #5 with "Give Me Everything", a disco-rap-house blend of sexual desperation which I'm sure is being blasted everywhere in the bars of the Jersey Shore and the outer boroughs of NYC. God help us, at #6 is Britney Spears. You really don't need the song title; it's her again. It doesn't change.

Inexplicably auto-tuned at #7 is J-Lo with Pitbull doing "On the Floor", a refreshingly old school disco hit that I could've heard at The Limelight or The Saint back in the 80s or 90s, sans the frantic rap lines here and there. Summer for the older crowd. Lady Gaga holds the #8 spot with "The Edge of Glory" and the pop diva does what she does best, belt her guts out to a dance beat. Clarence Clemons adds an unusual soulful sound with a wailing sax background. I like this. #9 is another forgettable hiphop-rap number by Lupe Fiasco, "The Show Goes On", though it's nice to hear horns again. And finally, at #10, is a heavily-sampled (aka unoriginal) "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO, completely ignorable, but good background noise for a bar.

So there we have the start of summer songs. I hope it gets better but I'm not holding my breath.