Albums That Feel Like Summer
With summer just around the corner, it's hard not to get lost in the daydream of ice cream, aperol spritz, and long evenings on the terrace with your kids and those closest to you.
I've always been a believer that summer isn't a season - it's a setting. Everything gets dialed up 100%: the volume, the feelings, the urgent need to escape. And for me? Summer is two weeks in July, where I get to put my email on vacation, and be present.
Some of these records remind me of my early twenties, and some of them are here to define my thirties. There's the mind where you're mind-numbing boredom that still feels cinematic, because who's going to stop you from romanticizing life anyway? Some are newer, tied to specific moments: the early morning runs, the late-night talks about life and the future, or listening to the same track five times in a row because it feels just right.
Maybe they aren't all sunny and upbeat. Some might sound like a heat-induced fever nightmare, and some might have you wondering. And this isn't some polished list of "essential summer albums to make YOUR summer the best," but it is the albums that I turn to (or have started turning to) when I feel the first rays of sun kiss my skin.
Kate Bush - Hounds of Love (1985)
Kate Bush was one of the female artists who made me feel like it was okay to be myself. Somehow, the 1985 album, Hounds Of Love, returned to my earstream in my mid-twenties, after nearly a decade apart. Suddenly, three summers ago, I was in Portugal, and the album and the song that played was "Cloudbusting." From then on, the good memories from my twenties hit me as the album progressed, and ever since, it's been one of my go-tos when summer is here.
And maybe it's the theatricality of it all. The way Kate Bush doesn't hold anything back. And that's what I enjoy about Hounds of Love. It feels like I'm walking into the ocean fully clothed: Free, and no need to edit my emotions down to please others.
Charli XCX - brat (2024)
This album became the summer album for 2024. Not because it's loud and bratty, and sounds like another bottle of rosé being opened at 2 P.M. on a Friday. But because Charli's honesty speaks volumes: how it felt being pitted against Lorde, the loss of her friend SOPHIE, reflecting on motherhood, and other existential questions that arise. And in between the clubby and messy songs, we're punched in the gut by Charli's vulnerability. Maybe I'm just biased because I can see myself somewhere in a lot of the songs - in the contradictions, in the noise, in the moments where you're a bit too self-aware.
The Menzingers - After The Party (2017)
I keep circling back to After The Party as the days grow longer. It doesn't really scream summer, perhaps. Still, it's bruised like I am, and completely honest: The Menzingers understand what it means to grow up, yet you're still waiting for the good part of adulthood to set in - but also remembering the late-night drives, the drunken stops at a kiosk or bodega in your youth, to now, laughing through that quarter-life crisis.
"Where are we gonna go now our twenties are over?", doesn't hit as strongly as it did in my first year in my thirties. It feels quieter, more like a resigned sigh than a panicked scream into the void. But continues to stick as I play it when the sun goes down over my town. Not every summer record needs to be poolside fun, Polaroid chic; it just needs to be you.
Sublime - self-titled (1996)
Surprise, Sublime made the list. It wouldn't have been my list if we didn't have a bit of Sublime to entertain us. My earliest memory of listening to Sublime, I think I was 14-15, and it was a hot summer day when I heard "Santeria." I remember not hating it, vibing with it, and 18 years later, it's a staple of my summer.
The tracks on the album have a proper sing-along pull, no matter how long it's been since you've heard the album or a few songs from it. It just reminds me of existing, relaxing, and being present, and not overthinking or stressing about what the day will bring. And we need those days, I need those days, and if you hear me put on this album, it's because I'm having one of those days.
Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell! (2019)
As soon as the first song on the album starts, and you're sitting outside with friends that adore Lana Del Rey as much as you do, the tone-deaf gang vocals from the terrace to "goddamn, man-child" will forever have me in stitches. It's not just that we sing every word as if we co-wrote each song, no - it's that we feel them, or I do at least. There's something comforting about singing your heart out while being surrounded by sweet friends. Mainly because Norman Fucking Rockwell! It's not just an album, it's a mood ring for us emotional ones.
It's the summer for the soft ones, the ones still healing, the ones that find romance in being alive. And maybe that is why it's essential, because it made space for the version of me that I lost along the way, the version of me that could reunite with Kate Bush, and the version of me that didn't want to dance, but had some nights feeling.
Djo - The Crux
I am fully aware that I've annoyed the living **** out of you with this album. Even I was surprised by how captivating it is. But since I've been spinning The Crux all spring, I can honestly say it's the perfect album for this time of year - when everything feels hopeful and nothing can touch you.
Listening to it is like having a late-night conversation with someone who understands what it's like to live in the in-between - caught between who you were and who you're trying to be. It lets me lean into those weirdly comforting moments where life feels a little less complicated and a little more electric. Or maybe I'm just odd, and I like hearing someone else spiral through a bit of existential dread, too.
That's it. That's the post. Now go put on something good and stand in the sun for a bit.