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Friday, June 3, 2011

Music VH1 Tries to Determine America's 2011 Summer Jam

Posted by Dan Gibson on Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 2:40 PM

That cable channel that used to show a bunch of music stuff and now just has shows about the wives of rappers, basketball players, and mobsters, VH1, has an interesting experiment on their blog trying to determine the summer jam of 2011 by looking at several metrics of popularity. Summer seems like the time of year when people actually listen to more music than any other season, so there's usually a pop or R&B song that's just everywhere people are in the sweaty months. Probably the best example was the clever concept track "Summertime" by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince in 1991. Write a song about summer, release it in the summer...genius.

However, it seems like the title of Summer Jam 2011 is still up in the air, so using their own video airplay (which apparently consists of five songs), radio airplay, YouTube views, and a few other metrics, VH1 has determined that Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" (above) is currently the frontrunner for the honor. It's not officially summer yet, so maybe a song will come from nowhere and take the title. Sure, the Adele song is fine (and the album is worth buying), but we're talking about a proud tradition that includes Rhianna's "Umbrella", Notorious B.I.G.'s "Hypnotize", and Hanson's "MMMBop". Only the most energetically awesome tracks will do.

My vote (albeit one with no chance), Edwin Van Cleef's perfectly summery cover of Phoenix's "Lisztomania":