the Perfect Feel Good Hits of Summer 2007 Mix Tape® post

Feminist issues, libertarian issues, Web geekery, musings on the mediated world …When we started this blog a few months ago, we had some ideas of things we were going to post about. Nothing concrete, but general issues. Guidelines, perhaps. “Soft politics,” you might call it — things that are culturally and politically relevant, but not about, say, health care or the economy or elections or war. Raee is pretty good at it; I’m a bit all-over-the-place. And I’m about to get a bit more all-over-the-place, I suppose, because lately I just keep wanting to post about things that are most certainly not on topic at all, like fiction books and music.

That said … I am on a quest to make the Perfect Feel Good Hits of Summer 2007 Mix Tape®. This quest has led me to consult with various entities about predictions for the Feel Good Hit of the Summer. For the record, my vote is on “Missed the Boat” off of Modest Mouse’s latest album. Suggestions from others have included:

• “Young Folks” by Peter Bjorn and John
• anything off Person Pitch by Panda Bear
• “Hang Me Up to Dry” by the Cold War Kids
• “Umbrella” by Rihanna
• “Sugarless” by Autolux
• “History Song” by The Good, The Bad, and the Queen
• “Icky Thump” by the White Stripes
• “Our Haunt” by Palomar, and
• “Broken Radio” by Jesse Malin

My friend Jables – arguably the most musically-ravenous person I know – suggests:

While there is no definitive summer of ‘07 banger, yet, these songs are serious contenders:

Spoon - Underdog
UGK & Outkast - International Players Anthem
New Pornographers - My Rights Versus Yours

These are the songs that have massive crossover appeal, and although interesting enough, don’t get too weird to scare people away. As in, one of these songs will find its way into too many parties this summer, and then eventually stumble into a major league sporting event / car commercial by the end of the year. I’m personally pulling for Animal Collective’s Peacebone to be so ubiquitous by the end of the summer, that they play during the superbowl’s halftime show.

So now I implore you to weigh in on this very important matter. Feel Good Hit of Summer 2007. Go.