Broad Spectrum of Bangers: Swash Labs' Summer Playlist

Summer is critical.

It is a crucial time for growth and reflection and, I think, a really important time for creativity to flourish. I think this gets trained into us by the western academic calendar and the persistent promise and potential of summer vacation. Even when you grow up and have to go to work all year round, summer retains just a little bit of that original magic.

Every major advance, every level up I’ve ever had as a creator — whether in words or music — has happened during the summer. For whatever reason, it truly feels like my brain can uncoil and my inner self can just, for lack of a better phrase, chill out a little.

An important part of that ethereal chilling-out process is listening to music, and in this case it specifically requires listening to Songs of the Summer. This is so important it has become a serious cultural consideration at Swash Labs for us to ponder, regularly, what the song of the summer might be in a given year.

This is not to imply that only one song makes the cut with each swing of the calendar, but some Songs of the Summer are more iconic and dominant than others, with some debate always allowed except in certain extremely imbalanced annual cases (see certain examples from Will Smith, The Beach Boys, Beyoncé, et al).

This led us to an amendment to our conversation as we marched towards this year’s summer solstice: a playlist of All Time Songs of the Summer. This is not a definitive list, and as gems come to light there will be additional tracks. We have songs representing some modern hits and contenders from 2019 while also reaching back across the years to the earliest days of rock and roll. Summer tunes lend a space for cultural inflection points based on a change of attitude and an openness to a different feeling, shedding the flighty thoughts of spring renewal for a more intentional bid for adventure.

And so, Swash Labs offers for your consideration, a broad spectrum of nostalgia and summer bangers: The Swash Songs of the Summer Playlist.