Check out this awesome time line of summer songs created by UPenn’s Jessica Goldstein for hercampus.com. From The Beach Boys to Katy Perry, Ms. Goldstein has collected the best and worst, but definitely most addictive, summertime tunes.
She writes: “This list isn’t just for songs about summer, but rather the tracks released in that May to August stretch, the ones scientifically engineered to stick in your head like peanut butter to the roof of your mouth. Is your favorite summer song—or, alternatively, a song that makes a tiny part of you die inside every time you hear it—missing from this scale of awesome-to-awful?”

The only contribution we would like to make to this list is the Bananarama’s “Cruel Summer,” released on June 27 in 1983. Equally eligible would be Ace of Base’s 1997 cover of the same song, which hit airwaves and Walkmans in July.


Summer Songs: from California Girls to California Gurls