With my Smashing Pumpkins and Decemberists "winter" music records shelved for the summer, there was room in my car CD player for lighthearted, up-tempo "summer" music, best experienced with the windows down.
The time between the sandwich shop and my destination, usually the length of one or two songs, was mine to listen to whatever I pleased.
Soul Asylum — yes, of "Runaway Train" fame — manages to stay relevant with their latest release in eight years, "The Silver Lining." The driving drums of their post-punk sound, even though they lived and played throughout the '80s punk scene, resonate well in the present tense. They even match the sound of a jackhammer doing construction on the interchange.
Sometimes I download music based on the band's name, and Say Hi to Your Mom's new album, "Impeccable Blahs," lived up to their self-proclaimed mediocre expectations. They don't accomplish anything new in terms of music, but are inoffensive enough in their talent to warrant a few listens, much like a summer action movie.
One day, as I was walking a delivery to a Marquette student apartment, I was momentarily distracted from anticipating a small tip from the notoriously bad-tipper population — Marquette's excessive irrigation caused a car to splash water over one side of my body, somehow sparing the sandwich. A 50-cent tip later, not even enough money to (legally) download one angry song online, it was back to the shop and then the car for some Pharrell.
The hip-hop artist/producer invites enough artists (including Kanye West, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Nelly and Gwen Stefani) on his new self-produced album "In My Mind" for a pool party. His foray into more of an R&B feel with more singing than rapping on some tracks works, as he avoids falling into cheesy love clichAcs and sidesteps an overuse of rhyming with the word "baby."
Though not new, The All Girl Summer Fun Band was definitely in constant rotation because their sugary harmonies that almost make your teeth hurt helped the day pass by quickly. The few couples that remained on the quiet campus punctuated the simplicity of the summer love themes present in much of their music.
After taking a weekend off to attend the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, I went on a Brit-rock kick, listening to some of the U.K. rockers who performed. The Futureheads live show was amazing, as they are akin to a modern-day Beatles in that they all sing. Their new album "News and Tributes" doesn't carry the same energy as their live show, but it is almost flawless in its layered execution. Although Art Brut's simplistic, explosive album, "Bang Bang Rock & Roll," was only recently released in the United States, most fans already knew all of the words.
After work one day, my short stint of employment ended abruptly while I was imbibing in the space-age stoner rock of the Secret Machines. As their almost six-minute single, "Lightening Blue Eyes," came to a crucial moment I was involved in a car accident. In that instant, I simultaneously fulfilled a stereotype, as I was the only female delivery driver, and matched the cymbal crash with my own percussive noise. My car deemed undrivable, the music still played on.
x