I'm In Love With That Song - Special Feature - Sounds o' Summertime

Summer: it’s fireworks, ice pops as a food group, mosquitoes gorging on your vital fluids. It’s also driving around aimlessly at dusk, windows down and music going full-blast. Many people seem to have “summer songs” or “summer albums”; tunes which instantly conjure up the swelterin’ season. For me, it’s always been Sublime’s self-titled album. It’s seventeen tracks of bouncy, bratty machismo, intensely evocative of charred hot dogs, pilfered Coronas and vague sunburnt longing.

I doubt I'll find another disc as intensely "summery" as "Sublime", unless someone digs up Bradley Nowell's corpse, reanimates it, brushes off the maggots and shoves it into a recording studio. And I'm not advocating that, as awesome as it might be. There's still plenty of music which nicely defines each brief, bug-bitten season. This year, I wanted to experience the sounds of my hep new urban environment... the pulse of the city, as it were. Thus, I spent the summer flipping my radio between two genres I'd previously shunned: college radio and Top 40. My aural anecdotes appear below.

College Radio: WPRB (also known as "W- ummn... that was... uhhh... The Charred Hot Dogs?... yeah... you might not have heard of them... it's just one guy with a Mr. Microphone, actually... um...")

Despite my desire to strangle the on-air "talent" with their own Belle & Sebastian t-shirts, listening to 'PRB was interesting. Occasionally, out of NOWHERE, they'd play a mind-meltingly terrific song. I discovered Flin Flon and The Victoria Lucas on 'PRB; I now shake my arhythmic white booty to both on a regular basis. Howver, for each truly ass-kicking tune, I had to suffer through hours and hours and hours of shows such as...

Industrial Washing Machine Filled With Hammers and Set on “Heavily Soiled” Hour

This is exactly what it sounds like. Also know as “Are you sure you’re actually ON a station?” and “Baby Mobile as Envisioned by Glenn Danzig”. This show is wildly inconsistent; some pieces make you want to disregard Johnson & Johnson’s sage advice and insert a Q-Tip into your ear canal ALL THE WAY. Others aren’t unpleasant at all, despite being utterly random and atonal. I sometimes wonder if the "sonic recycling bin" genre has undiscovered benefits. Perhaps a lack of discernible pattern frees up one’s mind, allowing it to access obscure and deeply-hidden information.

Although in my case, it’d probably be, “Oh, fuck! I forgot to renew my car registration!”

Ululation Nation

This show is full of mystery. Are the singers African? Indian? Venezuelan? Are they happy? Sad? Being attacked by fruit bats? Are they singing about love? Death? The difficulty of removing guano from Berber carpet?

Whatever the issue may be, it's clearly one of deep importance, as they are capable of rattling their epiglottis about it for no fewer than forty-five minutes at a go.

I listen to Ululation Nation in the secret hope that one day, the singer will pause, emit a series of harsh, phlegmy coughs, then chirp, "Ahem! Terribly sorry... now where were we? Ave Mariiiiiiiiiia, gratia plena, Maria, gratia plena..."

So, in summation: listening to college radio is like being in an Olympic swimming pool filled with frog intestines... but which also contains a few high-quality diamonds. Does the grossness outweigh the potential reward? It's a personal choice. Me? I'm still gritting my teeth and suffering through "Lou Reed Flicks Bottle Caps at a Stack of Marshall Amps for Three Hours, and It's Fucking GENIUS, Man".

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Top 40: Q102

Philly's local Top 40 station is a long-lived anomaly in a market where stations change formats more often than most people do underwear. When I was a wee lass, they trafficked primarily in Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer and other borderline-novelty rap acts. At the time, I lived in a Led Zepplin t-shirt and was planning on naming my firstborn "Page-Plant Thumbscrew", so I viewed Q102 with abject disgust.

As I grew older and less-insufferable, though, I came to appreciate the populist beauty of Top 40. Plenty of artists are more talented/creative/capable of penning lyrics more eloquent than "if you no gimme the work the blue balls a erupt". Top 40 tunes, however, are urban Muzak. Despite a lack of superior artistry, these songs are enjoyed - day after day - by a huge number of people. They're not "serious" art, but art's totally subjective. If "Pullin' Me Back" is more emotionally resonant for a teenager sitting on a sun-baked stoop on Girard than, say, "Concerto in D Minor", that's not for me to demean or deny.

Since this was my first summer as a liberated (and libertine) woman, it's not terribly surprising that I gravitated towards more booty-intensive songs. Two of this summer's most pervasive tunes celebrated the sheer, raunchy glee of hittin' it unashamed-style:

Promiscuous - Nelly Furtado

This is overproduction at its finest. I wasn't a huge fan of Nelly's earlier, angst-pop offerings; "I'm Like a Bird" invariably made me snap, "Yes, in that you need to stop your freakin' cheeping." "Promiscuous" however, tosses every Top 40 trick in the book in a blender and hits "Frappe". The results are surprisingly drinkable. This song did for proud female sexuality what Ron Popeil did for spray-on hair: FORCED you to look at it, whether you wanted to or not. As a result, I can offer only two half-hearted criticisms:

1. Nelly, you are from CANADA. There's only so promiscuous you can BE when you're wearing, like, down parkas and mukluks six months of the year! Unless you have your own polar-centric seduction techniques, ala, "Is that a strip of elk jerky in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"

2. Towards the end of the song, Nelly sings, "Hey is that the truth or are you talking trash / Is your game M.V.P. like Steve Nash?" This is a flagrant rip-off of the Beastie Boys' classic "I got mad hits like Rod Carew".

Actually, maybe I don't have a problem with that. Hip-hop lyrics are my only source of sports statistics; why not improve my Trivial Pursuit game while shaking my ass?

May I humbly suggest the following?

• "You're at the ten-yard, baby, we'll be hittin' it soon / Unless you're Offensive Player of the Year, just like Warren Moon"
  
• "I really like your style, girl, how 'bout we leave this party / and ground it into double-play like my man Ernie Lombardi?"
  
• "I'm playin' my A-game, just like Mike Krzyzewski / I really hope you like it, girl, and... um... uh.... damn."

Sexy Back - Justin Timberlake

This was basically the 2006 version of "Hot In Herre"... a novelty tune which should’ve peaked fast and died young. Instead, it hit #1 and became the auditory equivalent of beach sand: worming its way into your car, your home, your ass, your egg-salad sandwich. For awhile, it was so ubiquitous that you were surprised you didn’t hear it in MORE places… Domino’s commercials, for instance ("We're bringin' Cheesy Bread back... YEAH! Other grease-topped dough wads better watch their back... YEAH!").

Come to think of it, I’m not sure America really needs a Secretary of Sexy Restoration, no matter how determinedly Justin has campaigned for the job. We use sex to peddle everything from shampoo to cigarettes. Even fairly benign industries have capitalized on the allure of the illicit (“DICK!... Steinberg is just one of the financial experts available to help you diversify your investment portfolio!”). Objectively speaking, sexy has not left us. Sexy has not even run out to the 7-11 to get a Chipwich.

Special Bonus Feature: As It Turns Out, Maybe I Do Need a TV

[Despite the fact that I spent all summer thumping my steering wheel to this song, I somehow remained utterly deluded as to the singer’s gender. My sister clued me in while we were driving to WaWa one evening.]

“Oooh, keep this!” she said as I fiddled with the radio. The car soon filled with the familiar, guttural moans of someone who’s either deeply aroused or ruing the day they ever ate those clam strips.

“Who’s the chick singing?” I asked Junket, pulling into a parking space.

“Dude,” she said, “That’s not a chick. That’s Justin Timberlake!”

“No… no, it’s not!” I said, staring at her in horror, “That’s totally a woman!”

“Jul, haven’t you seen the video?” she asked.

“No… I don’t have a TV!” I whimpered, my brain unable to process this new information.

"This really changes your perception of the song, DOESN'T IT?" said Junket with malicious glee.

"IT CHANGES NOTHING! BECAUSE THAT IS A GIRL, GODDAMN IT!" I shrieked. Hey, if it works for high art, it can work for Top 40.