TUNES // hullabaloo summer pop edition

Post by Misha

The green in the tree outside our apartment is brasher every day. The grass is no longer tender and sparse, but explodes from the ground faster than we can push our little second hand mower around the yard. The birds are impatient. The dirt bike kids bray up and down the street twice nightly. In short, and in spite of everything, the air is ready for pop music. Not just any pop music. The big kind. Pop music ready and willing to blast out of a car stereo, and hit the dance floor, and bounce off into the windows of every lover on the block. That makes smiles louder and hair fuller. That bottles up the sun’s warmth and smells like the beach. Summer pop music.

Here are a few of my favorite summer pop contenders for this, the very special summer of 2021.

Maddie Ross // Vroom Vroom

If you have a crush (or are simply in love with the idea of having a crush – the bright simplicity of excitement, a rush like the swell of synths into a chorus, stabs of breathlessness hitting every other beat) then this song is for you.

Jelani Aryeh // Marigold

Somehow Jelani Aryeh has found a way to match the vibrancy and warmth of a field of this song’s namesake. Simple and unselfconscious, Marigold is drenched in youth, California air, and a yellow that stays flickering behind your eyelids long after the song ends.

Wallice // Hey Michael (feat. marinelli)

No summer would be complete without an anthem for (against?) the shitty dudes who ruin its best nights. The titular antagonist of ‘Hey Michael’ is familiar in a shudderingly under-the-skin kind of way, the chorus is flawlessly beltable, and the whole thing is in and out in a neat, bridgeless three minutes. Toss it back as a palate cleanser or make a whole meal of it.

MonoNeon // Invisible

Perhaps better filed under summer funk, this hazy tune sways and swells brilliantly, explosively, against the irony of its self-conscious lyrics, practically begging you to dance like no one’s watching.