Ultimate Summer Songs?

Rolling Stone decided in their recent issue (I say recent, but getting them by subscription in the UK means that actually it's not that recent) to take a look at the songs of the summer for the past 20 years. Of course, it has a US bias so not all of the songs cross the Atlantic with such ubiquity but for the most part it was a fun list of nostalgia.

There was only one song that I didn't recognise at all and that was 1996's Quad City DJs, but otherwise this would be a good playlist, if we have any more days of summer this year, which while I gaze out the holiday cottage window into a rainy Devon looks unlikely. Still, dig these out and pretend you're in the sun somewhere...

1990 Digital Underground - The Humpty Dance
1991 Naughty By Nature - OPP
1992 Sir Mix-A-Lot - Baby Got Back
1993 The Breeders - Cannonball
1994 Snoop Doggy Dogg - Gin & Juice
1995 TLC - Waterfalls
1996 Quad City DJ's - C'Mon N' Ride It (The Train)
1997 The Notorious B.I.G. - Mo Money, Mo Problems
1998 Aaliyah - Are You That Somebody?
1999 Kid Rock - Bawitdaba
2000 Eminem - The Real Slim Shady
2001 Missy Elliott - Get Ur Freak On
2002 Nelly - Hot In Herre
2003 Beyonce - Crazy In Love
2004 The Killers - Mr. Brightside
2005 Kanye West - Gold Digger
2006 Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
2007 Rihanna - Umbrella
2008 M.I.A. - Paper Planes
2009 Black Eyed Peas - Boom Boom Pow

Did you notice how few rock tracks there are in that list? Only three (Breeders, Kid Rock, Killers), possibly four if you put Gnarls Barkley in the indie/rock bracket that they probably belong. The rest are all what you could term "urban". I'm sure there are some really interesting things to be written about why that is, but not here. I've got to go and take the dog for a summer walk. In the rain.