Jezebel's Song of the Summer Tournament: Round 2 Sees Some Shocking Departures

Roxette - “It Must Have Been Love” (1990)

In a kind of inadvertent celebration of Christmas in July, Roxette’s “It Must Have Been Love”—originally written as a holiday song and released in 1987 in the group’s native Sweden—was slightly tweaked and reissued for the soundtrack of the 1990 blockbuster Pretty Woman. That movie had a long shelf life (it spent 16 weeks in the U.S. Top 10 after its March 23, 1990 release), and its soundtrack spawned a few hits, including Roxette’s and Go West’s “King of Wishful Thinking.” Lyrically, the pop duo left some frost around the edges (“Leave the winter on the ground”; “It’s a hard winter’s day…”), but Marie Fredriksson’s increasingly impassioned vocal delivery brings the heat. Her ad-libs at the end, including what sounds like an impromptu key change, are as astounding today as they were 33 summers ago. The production, with its big hollow drums and piano/synth tête-à-tête in the break, is the stuff of pure early ‘90s power balladry—emphasis on the power.

SWV - “Weak” (1993)

The infatuation described in “Weak”—losing control, being in a daze, a heart racing in triple time (dangerous, but we’ve been there), and of course, getting weak in the knees—sets spring fever to music. And, indeed, the single’s crawl to the top of the charts began when it was released on April 16, 1993—eventually dislodging Janet Jackson’s megahit “That’s the Way Love Goes” from the top of the charts to finally hit No. 1 that July, and has since proven to be one of the defining ballads of ‘90s R&B. You’d be hard pressed to find one as sweet—though as was the case for most of the New York-based trio’s output, there’s still a bit of edge here. Lead singer Coko’s limber voice has a distinct, piercing tone, the keyboard that opens the song sounds like something that could have been purchased at Radio Shack, and you can hear the air moving in the stripped-down track, endowing it with a sense of humidity. “I had written this song love song ‘Weak’ for Charlie Wilson, but I gave it to them,” writer/producer Brian Alexander Morgan recalled to Rolling Stone in 2015. “Coko was real cold to me at first and not very nice. She didn’t like the song and gave me real attitude when we recorded it.” You can’t hear it at all on the record. A consummate professional.

DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince - “Summertime” (1991)

Drums please!

“Summertime” is the estival counterpart to “All I Want for Christmas Is You”—a perennial jam whose fleeting presence is an essential signifier of the season. In fact, with all due respect to Memorial Day, I don’t consider it to be officially unofficially summer until I hear “Summertime” (this year, it happened one sunny Sunday in May on the way to Prospect Park). It’s based on a sample of Kool & the Gang’s “Summer Madness,” a psychedelic instrumental whose haze and ascending melody capture the feeling of hot air in sound. Will Smith’s summertime imagery—basketball courts, double-dutch, a barbecue—is familiar enough to be universal but specific enough to paint a vivid picture. “And as I think back makes me wonder how/The smell from a grill could spark up nostalgia,” he raps. And now his song itself lives among those hallmarks of summertime nostalgia.

Robin S - “Show Me Love” (1993)

Superstar DJ Honey Dijon says that there are a handful of songs that are failsafe crowd-movers. Among them: “Finally” by CeCe Peniston, “Gypsy Woman (She’s Homeless)” by Crystal Waters, and “Show Me Love” by Robin S. Thirty years after the release of the Stonebridge remix that would go on to become the definitive version of “Show Me Love,” the song remains an intense experience—time has done nothing to erode the impact of Robin S’s soaring vocal, those pummeling beats, the grinding bass line, or the Korg M1 organ preset that would become the song’s signature sound. When Beyoncé dropped “Break My Soul” in 2022, many noticed similarities to “Show Me Love” (via that organ sound) and she even listed the writers of “Love” in the credits of “Soul” for her song’s use of “elements” from Robin S’s original. There are club classics that represent the time in which they were first released and consumed brilliantly, little time machines with insistent pulses. But then there are songs like “Show Me Love” that transcend time altogether.

Adele - “Rolling in the Deep” (2011)

Top 40 radio likely ruined “Rolling in the Deep” for you back in 2011, but long before it ever became relegated to dentist offices, it was a smart, scornful breakup ballad. Equal parts authoritative tell-off, and mournful declamation of what could’ve been, “Rolling in the Deep,” did what few pop songs (save for Beyoncé’s, “Best Thing I Never Had” and Christina Perri’s “Jar of Hearts”) of the summer managed to achieve: It gave the heartbroken something profoundly cathartic to belt with the windows down.

Its thumping drum beat, mounting percussion, and mega chorus might disguise it as a track for those who’ve made it to the other side of a devastating split. But the lyrics? Those could only be written—and deeply felt—by someone in the throes. Also, it’s rumored to have been inspired by a British musician known as, “Slinky Sunbeam.” Which, yeah...that’s pretty bleak, too. Based on the song’s success, however, it’s safe to say we’ve all been there, and, hopefully, are saying hello! from the other side.

Gotye featuring Kimbra - “Somebody That I Used To Know” (2012)

In 2012, America had a summer fling with Australian singer-songwriter Gotye, whose Sting-ish “Somebody That I Used to Know” went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for eight weeks. And then we never heard from him again, in true fling fashion. The song remains a weird vibe—I’ve never heard such seething accompanying a xylophone before or since—commercial ear candy that invites you to witness a kiss-off. Gotye wasn’t the first person to use “you’re just somebody that I used to know” as a way of diminishing a relationship (Elliott Smith’s 2000 album contained a similarly acidic song of the same title), but he was the one who was able to spin it into a pop smash. There’s something sunshiney about the chorus—especially the call-and-response “somebody”/“I used to know” on the fade out—but the portrait of a dead relationship and the resulting ire is pure rot.

Beyoncé featuring Jay Z - “Crazy In Love” (2003)

There are a few reasons Beyoncé is performing “Crazy In Love” to this day. The first? It cemented the fact that the now global superstar could be a solo act. Upon its release in 2003, Beyoncé was still technically a member of Destiny’s Child but decided to put out a record all by herself. Obviously, it was a sweeping success with multiple lingering No. 1's on the Billboard Hot 100. The second? It empowers its audience to admit exactly how it feels to love *gulps* a man. Perhaps love is too benign a word. “Maintain an honest-to-goodness obsession for” is more like it.

Even if it’s been a while since someone’s got you sprung, “Crazy In Love” does what every good song should do: Summons the (hopefully not-so-distant) memory.

Carly Rae Jepsen - “Call Me Maybe” (2012)

What would come to be a foremost example of 21st-century bubblegum pop originally started out as a folk song. Had Carly Rae Jepsen decided to go with that original arrangement and not the dance-pop sparkler it became, the larger world might never have been blessed with her indelible tune. In aggregate, it’s sunshine in a song, a definitive component of the soundtrack of the summer of 2012. When “Call Me Maybe” broke in the spring of 2012, it spread with a virality more reserved for silly YouTube videos (or maybe Rebecca Black’s “Friday”). People passed it around amazed, as if they couldn’t believe such a song was possible. It’s still amazing.