Song of the Summer 2022

There was a point yesterday morning where I wished that I had Facebook, or God-forbid Twitter, so I could poll humanity and ask them, “What do you think the song of the summer was for 2022?”.

   For me the song I feel like the song of the summer was, Unconditional (Lookout Kid) by Arcade Fire. Maybe this is because I mostly only listen to The Spectrum, the  old-fogey, college radio-type station channel on Sirius XM with some additional support from the Dave Matthews channel and Pop Rocks (90s/2000s Pop & Rock Hits) channel for good measure.

I think Unconditional resonated with me because it is a song about advise that the singer wants to give his child about the world and I spend a lot of time thinking about parenthood. 

Weird choice, I know.

I get it, it can’t be the song of the summer. It is not light and fun enough. It doesn’t evoke images of summer fun and romance. I think a classic song of the summer is about summer love or good times with friends. It has to be played a lot. In order to qualify for the title of Song of the Summer, you have to be able to imagine hearing it when you are at the beach or over the loudspeakers at the local pool. Lookout Kid, doesn’t meet that requirement.

   Since I don’t have social media right now, save for Goodreads, I did the next best thing and I polled my sisters via text. There are five of us in total so that might provide me with acceptable sample size. 

  They didn’t all respond to that question, which is okay. Not everyone is a radio listener. To give you some insight into who me and my sisters are: three of us are in our early to mid-forties, one is in her mid-thirties, and one is in her early twenties.

   You might have guessed this, but none of their responses were anything that were even on my radar.

  My youngest sister sent a screenshot of her playlist this summer and I hadn’t even heard of most of the artists. She by her own admission has pretty indie taste.

  There’s an episode of the NBC comedy Community where the main character, Jeff Winger, ends up in some drug-induced coma after he takes a Korean anti-aging pill and drinks alcohol on his 40th birthday. While in his coma, he has an elaborate dream that plays out like an episode of the 1980’s cartoon G.I. Joe. The point of the episode is that Jeff doesn’t want to get older and his coma-dream is helping him process his feelings. While Jeff’s hallucination is wrapping up, and he is coming out of his coma, one of the characters in his hallucination is aging rapidly as Jeff is waking up. As the character is dying from rapidly aging he screams, “Why is my ability to appreciate new music diminishing”?

I love this line. I think about it all the time now. I don’t understand new music. I don’t know the artists. I find myself resistant to the changing tastes of the younger generation(s). I’m a geriatric millennial at best, by some standards, I am a Gen X-er.

Now that I am in my 40’s I have no idea what is popular. In terms of fashion, I don’t understand why young people these days are wearing Mom jeans. I can’t bring myself to dress in high waisted jeans and crop tops. I used to peg my jeans and pull my socks up over them in 8th grade. It was the look in 1992. We probably wore them long after they stopped being cool in other places because you know, rural America.  I can’t do it again. I was conditioned at some point between the end of high school and college that those styles out and I can’t adjust my brain to the idea that acid wash and high-waisted pegged jeans are something that should be worn anymore.

After I texted with my sisters, I did my research again (I am a librarian but I guess Google is my go-to resource) and Googled “Song of the Summer 2022”. I didn’t know most of those songs either, but maybe I knew a few more of the artists than the list my youngest sister sent me… so that’s something. I at least know how Megan-thee-Stallion is even if I don’t know any of her music.

 Still, I knew that you could stick a fork in me because I am done. It is official, I am no longer a sought after demographic. I am not exactly chopped liver . . . but me thinks I have now reached Chico’s stage of my life, even if I don’t shop there, yet. It’s more metaphorical. I guess that’s good. The women in those commercials all seem so happy and sassy in their leopard prints.

It’s also freeing to know that influential marketers don’t care what you care about anymore. I am glad that I had this epiphany. For my writing I am finding this to so liberating.

I have been trying to figure out what I should write about on this blog and I wanted to make sure that I was writing about things that people wanted to read. . .But the thing is if it the things that are popular now aren’t even things that I have a chance of knowing about, does it even matter if I am trying to write about what people think they want to read.

I love you guys, but if I do not have any idea what is popular with you, then that means what does it even matter if I am trying to tailor it to what I think you want to hear. I don’t even have chance in knowing about what people want to hear. It is a good thing.

So just for laughs and fun, what was the song of the summer for you? What do you find to be liberating?

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