Summer seems to have finally arrived in Great Britain. Pimm’s, strawberries and the promise of disappointment in the realms of sport are gripping the nation. Such great things deserve an equally great soundtrack. The Kinks? Fleetwood Mac? The Beach Boys? The aforementioned would usually be my protocol when it comes to choosing sounds of the summer, however, this year, I have found myself disturbingly and somewhat surprisingly tuned into the popular charts for my summer listening.
It’s not that I have anything against popular music – there is a lot of great pop music out there but chart music and all that comes with it has never really been for me. It’s never inspired me.
The names in the current top 40, for example, are not exactly ‘creative’. There’s Waves by Mr. Probz which has clearly recognised the connection of good weather and the beach leisure activities that have been traditional in this country since Queen Victoria; I Got U by Duke Dumont which uses the simple promise of summer love for sales. And then Calvin Harris who has decided to skip all the bollocks of teasing suggestion and called his summer anthem – Summer. Fantastic work there.
Now, as well as not traditionally being a man of pop, I am not a man of dance, yet all these tracks force one to do exactly that. It may just be a disturbing self-destructive part of my own psyche that has decided that this music is best suited for me to move the trunk of my body from side to side, round and round and in ever which way the music calls me, but for some reason I am forced to do so.
Jason Derulo, who I have never had much time for in the past, has released a song entitled – Wiggle, and perhaps unsurprisingly forced me to do exactly that. Great swathes of space are now created for me at parties so I can follow Mr. Derulo’s instructions to the letter, and exhibit my limited capacity for dance, which makes the struggle for the Crimea look dignified.
Yet, for all my complaints, these are still the tracks I find myself humming in my spare time. They are unlikely to be songs which I will regard with the same respect as say, the Kinks’ Sunny Afternoon, or Thin Lizzy’s Dancing in the Moonlight, but nonetheless they still manage to drive you to want to dance and embrace the little summer our little country has.
So, despite my best judgement, and I am sure to look back and regret this, I may admit that this summer I may be taking my soundtrack from the popular chart. Clear the dancefloor, it’s time for Spike to humiliate himself.
Spike Lister
Spike Lister is a student at Edinburgh University. He studies History. His icon is Peter O’Toole and he considers himself to be a part-time connoisseur of soup. He doesn’t dance; he fears he looks like a bin liner full of yoghurt when he does and he would like to take this opportunity to propose to Melanie Laurent, who he believes is Aphrodite.
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(Image sourced from: www.rollingstone.com)