Sure, all seasons have music that fits them best, but we don't think any season has such a specific feel to the music that defines it like summer. And even though the feel of summer is specific, the sounds of summer are varied and expansive. Often connected to core sense memories, summer music is at once highly personal and widely communal, connecting us to ourselves and other people through sonic rapprochement. There's airy sense of fun, well-being and comfort that connects all our favourite summertime essentials we've included on this list and we hope that listening to this list brings you all of those feelings and more. Hopefully something on here connects and finds its way to your own summer playlists.

Sublime – Garden Grove
As an elder millennial male on the west coast, Sublime is just a part of my DNA, for better or worse. (I maintain that Sublime would be much less easy to make fun of if it wasn’t for the existence of “Date Rape” and “Wrong Way.” Ehhhh, maybe “Caress Me Down” too. Okay, I may need to re-evaluate this theory after I finish writing this piece. But I digress…) I’m onboard for Sublime jokes all year around. They’re an incredibly fun, and easy, band to make fun of. The great Josh Gondelman once called Sublime a “Blacklight Che Guevara poster that you listen to.” But their importance in the millennial music pantheon is real. They exposed a lot of people to music they wouldn’t have otherwise heard. For all his faults, Nowell was an incredible songwriter, able to mine his personal depths and sing his findings in his unmistakably passionate voice. All this (possibly ill-conceived) Sublime-apologism aside, that held-string opening and simple drum beat into the slinking guitar usually signals the start of summer to me. This is not music I listen if the sun is not out. “Garden Grove,” like the self-titled album it comes from, has been a part of my lazy summers for close to three decades now and I don’t think it’s going to stop being part of the season any year soon.

Jerry Champion - It’s Summertime
There was a video series on a channel that shall no longer be named, where they would invite artists to play music from their vinyl collective. One of these episodes featured DāM FunK, and while every selection he made ended up being Shazam’d and saved, this song was an easy choice for this playlist topic. Originally released by Jerry & The Champions in 1984, only to later be re-released by Jerry Champion in 2000, “It’s Summertime” has a mesmerizing groove that draws listeners in. The guitar solo that comes in from time to time is next level and it’s a perfect way to break up the track's repetitive aspects. It pains me to know we can’t go back in time, but the 80s had the summer season on lock when it came to music.

Skylar Spence – Fiona Coyne
If you remember Skylar Spence in 2014, you’re a real one. If you remember his vaporwave days as “Saint Pepsi”, then your ball knowledge is legendary. “Fiona Coyne” was one of his first releases after Skylar changed his stage name, and this song still holds up 12 years later. I know 12 years wasn’t that long ago, but this song has a vintage feel that could easily be heard while taking a walk along the beaches of Miami in the 80s. Take me back to that time, please and thank you.

Neil Young – Mellow My Mind
My tolerance for old white guys with guitars has drastically diminished over the years, but one guy that keeps finding a spot in my heart – and I think always will – is good ol' Neil Young. With a catalogue of summery classics as deep as the Pacific Ocean, choosing just one Neil Young song for this list proved exceedingly difficult. I could take literally anything off On The Beach. I could pull something from Zuma. Fuck, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere exists. Harvest is an album that also exists. But I had to go with something from Tonight's The Night because Tonight's the Night is the best Neil Young album. Argue with a fucking wall. That lazy electric guitar and lilting harmonica of “Mellow My Mind” just do something to my insides. I'm a bit too young to remember “jugglin' nickels and dimes” having any significance to me (“jugglin' quarters and loonies just doesn't sound the same) and I've never been into fishing, but “Mellow My Mind” makes me long for a childhood summer I never experienced all the same.

America – Ventura Highway
This is purely situational but imagine you’re listening to this song on an Alberta highway in the middle of a heatwave. There’s nothing around you but rolling hills and all you’re hearing are beautiful harmonies. The whole experience might suck, but at least you have the perfect song for the moment. This happened to me back in 2022, where my dad and I were travelling from Edmonton, back to his home in the Kootenays. There I am, a puddle of sweat, but let me tell you; those guitars kept me alive. It’s an oldie and will forever be a summertime goodie in my books.

K+Lab – She No More
If I'm going to stay up late, (a genuine rarity for me) I'm going to be staying up late in summer and you gotta have those good, smooth late night tracks to keep things groovy and sexy. I think K+Lab might be one of the most underrated musicians working today, in any genre, and everything he's released under his PXLMTREES moniker perfectly fits into that sexy late-night summer vibe. I could have taken any song off either of his PXLMTREES and been satisfied with it on this list. “She No More” (from Pxlmtrees Vol. 2) gets the call because it's one of my favourite K+Lab songs from any of his projects, full stop. I vividly remember hearing this for the first time – on headphones, walking home late at night after the party – and hitting that repeat, listening to it at least half a dozen times before I arrived at my door. This track just glides cleanly down the ear canal, unencumbered by roughness or slop. The silky guitar riffs, the slightly 80s electronic noises, the understated by driving bassline, all combine for a late-night summer banger, essential for anyone claiming to have taste in music. (Also, I'm pretty sure there's a vocal sample from Calimossa in here and that fucking rocks, because Calimossa is dope. And that's not where the sample is from, fuck me, I guess.)

KETTAMA & Interplanetary Criminal – Yosemite
This song had its moment in 2024, but it’s too good not to feature. When I think of summer EDM bangers, I need moments where I get goosebumps while warm air hits me. “Yosemite” does this and a whole lot more. You want a buildup and a drop? It’s got that. Euphoric vocals that take your mind to another world? It’s got that, too. Since this song released, KETTAMA has been on a victory lap that never ends. Interplanetary Criminal deserves his flowers too because if it weren’t for these two, I don’t know what EDM song would be my most played over the last two years.

Psychic Mirrors – Charlene II
Here’s the quick version of this story; I’m doomscrolling on Instagram Reels (I know, tsk tsk) and all the sudden, some funky vintage sounds bless my eardrums. I look the band up, and they go by Psychic Mirrors. That’s when I realize that this is no band from the late 70s/early 80s, this band is from late 2010s to now. My mind was blown, especially hearing a track like “Charlene II.” What can I say, it’s a vintage feeling summer for me and songs like this one make it impossible for it not to be. With the world moving at such a fast pace, it’s nice to be able to listen to music that reminds us of the past and simpler time.

The Be Good Tanyas – Human Thing
There’s not a lot of straight-ahead folk music that has stuck with me over the years. In fact, most people are pretty shocked to learn that I even had any kind of folk phase in my life. But The Be Good Tanyas have been part of the summer rotation since Chinatown came out in 2003. “Human Thing,” the opening track from the follow-up record Hello Love, is a gorgeous, lilting folk track buoyed by gentle harmonica and Frazey Ford’s rich, deep voice. It sounds like a meadow stroll or the feeling of sitting on the trunk of arbutus tree, legs stretched out over ocean waves. Seems like every second summer or so, I remember to put Hello Love on the speakers and as soon as those plucked opening notes hit, I'm transported to the best parts of summers past.

Jurassic 5 – Concrete Schoolyard
In my 30+ years of being a rap head, there might not be any rap group I associate more with good times in the summertime than the mighty Jurassic 5. I’m a west coast rap kid through and through The legendary west coast collective has a deep catalogue of genuine rap classics – “Freedom,” “Quality Control,” “What’s Golden” and (controversially) “Work It Out,” to name a few – but there’s none that hold the summer crown like the beginning, “Concrete Schoolyard,” the track that introduced a lot of us to J5 in the first place. The bouncingly catchy beat built on an Ike Turner & The Kings of Rhythm sample combined with the four elite MCs exchanging playful, thoughtful bars with some genuine humour, combine to create a legit underground classic. If you need a little bounce in your step as you’re traversing the hot summer streets, “Concrete Schoolyard” will absolutely give you what you need.

DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince – Summertime
If we are being honest, Kool & The Gang’s “Summer Madness” (the sample for this song) could’ve easily been chosen for this Trash Gentlemen List. That said, the sample has stood the test of time and some of my favourite songs use it. Case in point; Summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. This song was on their Homebase album, which was released one year after The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air made its way onto TV screens across many nations. To me, this is an important album because at a time where it could be seen as “changing priorities” moving towards television, this dynamic duo made sure to remind fans where they started and that they weren’t leaving anytime soon.

Isaiah Collier – Perspective (Peace and Love)
You know I had to add some Jazz to the playlist, but Isaiah Collier is in a lane of his own. I first heard this song live when Collier performed in Victoria in 2023 during the TD Victoria International JazzFest. He was performing at Hermann’s Upstairs (RIP) and ended his second set with this song. At the time, it was unreleased, and I remember constantly going back to his social media pages to see if this song had been released. It took about a year later for this song to see the light of day, but I spun it so much, I swear I’m like 200+ of its plays alone. “Perspective” is a feel-good song and I find myself quite relaxed every time I hear it, especially while watching a summer sunset.

DJ Smokey – Salute 2 El Chapo
I gotta be honest here. When I started selecting tracks for this summer tunes mix, I had a fantastically difficult time not just picking a slate of songs I like to listen to while smoking weed. I’m not a big fan of summer myself, but sitting under a tree in the shade, smoking a joint while listening to music is definitely an all-time favourite activity in life for me, and there aren’t many better smoking tunes than this one – a bouncy, slumping chopped and screwed masterpiece from the mercurial Montreal producer. Known by many as the theme song for Chapo Trap House, “Salute 2 El Chapo” moves with a heavy sluggishness that feels as stoned out as any of the slower Cypress Hill songs. The last section of the song drags out so long that it’s almost comical. It’s really just a perfect smoking song without any bloat dragging it down.

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