Summer 2021 Playlist: Annotated
The theme of my 2021 Summer Playlist is: DEBAUCHERY! We are vaccinated and we are embracing hedonism! We are hugging our friends! We are eating out! We are traveling! (We are still taking reasonable precautions against the Delta variant!)
Hope you like pop punk.
1) “I’m Not A Loser” by Amyl and The Sniffers - With lyrics like “I’m not a fan, not a fan of traditions / I just want to get pissed here in my kitchen,” this Australian band captures the summer zeitgeist perfectly. What better place to start?
2) “Claudia Kishi” by The Linda Lindas - After bursting onto the scene with their viral performance of “Racist, Sexist Boy” at the LA Public Library, this youngest of riot grrrl bands won me over, along with pretty much everyone else in the country. “Claudia Kishi” is about their favorite member of The Baby-Sitters Club—and mine, as a matter of fact! Though I was more interested in the The Baby-Sitters Club Mysteries myself.
3) “1982” by The Tuts - One look at TikTok will show you that Gen Z is really nostalgic for pop punk and emo. As the original pop punk/emo generation, that’s good news for Millennials, too—there are lots of wonderful new bands on the scene. Like England’s The Tuts, for instance!
4) “Loose Teeth” by La Luz - I find many songs for my seasonal playlists on my Spotify Discover Weekly playlists; “Loose Teeth” was one of them. Big surf vibes, always appropriate for summer.
5) “You’re Standing on My Neck” by Honeyblood - Because who doesn’t love the Daria theme song? “You’re Standing on My Neck” was originally written and recorded by a band from NYC called Splendora; Scottish act Honeyblood released this very faithful cover in 2019.
6) “Cranes in the Sky” by Big Joanie - Another cover! Punk band Big Joanie totally reimagined this Solange song for a single they released in 2020.
7) “Rainforest” by Noname - Because I will never ignore a new Noname song. “Because, because a rainforest cries / everybody dies a little / and I just wanna dance tonight”—that rings true for a debaucherous summer post-traumatic event of epic proportions, doesn’t it?
8) “brutal” by Olivia Rodrigo - Is it sacrilegious to follow anticapitalist Noname with hypercapitalist Disney queen Olivia Rodrigo? Probably, but I’m doing it anyway. This 18-year-old’s debut album Sour is just banger after banger after banger.
9) “Eat Them Apples” by Suzi Wu - This song is from the soundtrack of the most recent To All the Boys I Loved Before movie; sad there won’t be any more of them, but psyched for the spinoff series about Lara Jean’s little sister Kitty.
10) “Just Like I” by Xenia Rubinos - Soaring vocals over plenty of distortion? Right up my alley. Also found this one on a Discover Weekly playlist.
11) “They Must Go” by Shamir - Very few artists reinvent themselves as much as Shamir does—every album is different. The song comes from a 2020 album called Cataclysm, which seems appropriate given its poppy beginning that builds bigger and messier as it goes.
12) “TGIF” by K. Flay, featuring Tom Morello - I love how cheeky K. Flay is—bold and somewhat tacky to reference Rage Against the Machine in a song featuring Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, but she commits to it fully. I admire that. Also, these lyrics: “Middle fingers up ‘til the reaper shows up.” Perfect for this summer, right?
13) “ZITTI E BUONI” by Måneskin - This song by Italian band Måneskin was the winner of the 2021 Eurovision contest—and it is an excellent rock song, if I do say so myself. Pure, unfiltered rock ’n’ roll. Gorgeous. (On a related note: the lead singer Damiano David is one of the most gorgeous creatures I have ever beheld. Is he a classical statue come to life and later tattooed?? It warrants further study.)
14) “Fallin’” by Connie Francis - I was struggling to figure out what song to put after “ZITTI E BUONI”—until I realized it was time for a 1960s interlude. I’m still not entirely sure why this transition works—maybe because they’re in the same key? At least I think they are? Anyway, put on your dancin’ shoes for this one.
15) “The Devil (Didn’t Make Me Do It)” by Twin Temple - I’ve recently been watching the TV show Lucifer—and because we live in a creepy surveillance state, Spotify started putting a bunch of songs about Satan on my Discover Weekly playlists. Worked out in the end—Twin Temple is a pair of literal Satanists who formed a doo-wop band. Utterly charming.
16) “Cry to Me” by Solomon Burke - When this song came on my Discover Weekly playlist, I could have sworn it was from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack—and I was 100% correct. Good work, my brain. Anyway, Dirty Dancing is perfect for our Big Debauchery Summer. That’s exactly the vibe we’re going for.
17) “Woman” by Karen O and Danger Mouse - Love Karen O, love songs that proudly proclaim womanhood. Plus, it was a good transition away from our 1960s interlude. The drums at the intro sound like the beginning of a Motown song, maybe “Where Did Our Love Go”—but then the song moves away from that into more punk-adjacent territory.
18) “Talk About It” by Jungle - Until this song popped up, I’d sort of forgotten that Jungle existed. I’ve seen them in concert twice, actually—once at a festival in Nice (yes, be jealous), and once in Vegas, when they opened for Alt-J. Seems they’re still serving up strong 70s-style dance sounds, which is something I consistently enjoy. And it’s ideal for moving us into our Disco interlude!
19) “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” by Sylvester - Have you listened to the You’re Wrong About podcast episode about Disco Demolition Night? You absolutely must. It reminded me just how joyful disco is, so it had to be represented on my summer mix. Sweaty nonstop dancing! Hedonism at its finest!
20) “Fall in Love With Me” by Iggy Pop - We listen to Iggy Pop whenever we need to get sleazy and messy and gross—an extremely important facet of Big Debauchery Summer.
21) “song bout gold” by ShitKid - This Swedish duo popped up on one of my Discover Weekly playlists, and they’re super weird, and I love it? Lots of distorted guitar? That should cover it.
22) “Believe That” by THE ANXIETY - THE ANXIETY is a collaboration between Willow Smith and Tyler Cole, and their lyrics focus on—you guessed it—anxiety. This song is particularly dark—the uncertainty of growing up, the fear of being Black in a country where the police might shoot you for no reason. But anxiety can be fuel for debauchery, too, and I think that’s especially true this summer—anything to distract us from the myriad horrors of last year.
23) “Hit Like A Girl” by Meet Me @ The Altar - Another new pop punk band on the scene. This one will really bring you back to your high school days, fellow Millennials. It’s uncanny.
24) “Ohio” by King Princess - Like many other songs on the playlist, “Ohio” sounds like it could be from the 70s. Starts in an almost ballad-like hush, builds into a distorted frenzy. It’s very pretty.
25) “Dancing Days” by Led Zeppelin - A few months back I went on a Led Zeppelin kick—which is strange, since I think they’re generally overrated. But this particular song is great, and it’s almost too on-the-nose for Big Debauchery Summer: “Dancing days are here again / As the summer evenings grow.” Get out there and have excessive amounts of fun!
Need more Summer music?