Summer

This June + July were full of '00s throwbacks, the consequences of capitalism, and drives around LA.

Rain, Cosette

My favorite project this summer was an EP called CONQUEST by a small producer/singer/songwriter named Cosette. I found it through a Glitch Gum remix of one of her songs; I listened through it for the first time instead of listening to my high school’s vice principal at our graduation instructional assembly. I was continually more impressed with each new track I heard. It’s only 13 minutes, but it’s one of the most intentionally crafted 13 minutes of music I’ve listened to–each song is designed to blend into the next, to function more as one long piece than 6 separate ones. I was very tempted to kick one of my albums from this list to talk about it in full instead, but I decided to hold off and just keep my most-played song, “Rain.” I added it to my summer playlist the first time I heard it, and it became my morning routine to throw on “Rain” as I pulled out of my driveway on the way to work. It’s a piece beautifully layered with her electronic vocals and synths, mixed all together to become a soft blend of sounds. It moves from detail to detail, small treats scattered all over the song like sunbeams on water. I highly recommend listening to the whole project (it’s only 13 minutes, after all), but this song alone can take credit for getting me through June and July. 

Stateside, PinkPantheress

I have a contentious relationship with PinkPanthress and her takes on song lengths, but I like a lot of her work. It’s never caught me in the way it has many others, but when I heard she had a song produced by The Dare on her new record, I figured that was worth a listen. It’s ironic for the most British-aspiring man I know to be making a song about going to America for a hookup, but PinkPanthresses’ personality makes it work. It’s a modern-day “American Boy” but harder and faster, much like how American life has evolved since 2008. The hits make dancing irresistible, and it’s an easy #1 on my list of songs I want to see choreography to. Like much of The Dare’s work, it’s made for the new generation’s entrance into the club, seeking an escape from the never-ending doom and doomscrolling that occupies most of our days. It’s funny to look at what club fantasies of luxury looked like in the 2000s (multiple cars, multiple homes, diamond jewelry) vs. now (being able to travel abroad). But it hits hard in my headphones no matter where in the world I am, and everyone I’ve played it for has agreed. 

Money Is Everything, Addison Rae

Boy, do I have mixed feelings on Addison Rae. I intended to write a full review of her album sometime this summer, but I got sidetracked by work and trying to do everything I needed to before my move this August. As much as it pains me to say, I do think her album is really good. It’s this throwback-inspired synth pop record, paying tribute to all of the great pop idols (“I want to roll one with Lana, get high with Gaga”) as Rae tries to become one herself. But what she misses about all of them is their authenticity, or at least their ability to portray it. Having seen everything about Addison Rae’s public persona shift to follow the trends over the last 6 years, it’s incredibly difficult to believe that any given version of her is an authentic one. This puts a barrier between me and her music, because it never feels relatable in the same way that Gaga or Lana or Taylor does. Even the greatest stars were once normal people, but a side effect of Rae’s skyrocket TikTok rise is that we never got to see her as one. Her career didn’t begin slowly like most musicians, it blew up overnight and she transformed it from one money-making venture to the next. This album feels fundamentally fake, like it’s music from a TV show such as The Idol: it’s someone putting on the persona of “pop star,” not someone who actually is one. That said, it has some incredible tracks–“Fame Is A Gun” is one of the best pop songs I’ve heard in a while, and “Money Is Everything” is earworm enough to become my most-played song this summer. This synth-pop sound happens to be right up my personal alley, so it’s hard for me not to like it musically. But Addison Rae herself remains a mystery to me. An American dream of a pop star: not quite real. 

Caustic, The Hellp

The first song on each year’s summer playlist always gets a lot of plays, and I added this one back on Valentine’s Day. Who knows where I found it, but I know a summer banger when I hear one, and this became the origin of my 2025 collection. The Hellp have been credited as contributors to the recent indie sleeaze revival, which makes sense given their affinity for tastefully trashy electronics. I want to listen to this whole record, but so far this song has proven great no matter how many listens I’m on. It’s very much in the vein of producer The Dare, with notes of Frost Children and 2hollis mixed in. They use a really cool trick throughout this song (highlighted in the chorus) of cutting together a bunch of different single-word takes to make a vocal collage of sorts. It’s super cool, and I’ve never heard it used like that before. I’ve found myself craving this song’s intentionally messy beats and have come back to it time and time again this summer. 

Round Round, Sugababes

For all the 2000s resurgence music that appears on this list, this one is actually authentic. Straight from 2002, Sugababes’ “Round Round” sounds straight out of an early ‘aughts teen movie, with Lindsay Lohan cruising down the streets of Los Angeles in a convertible with this blasting on the radio. It’s also a girl group song, which is an art that has mostly died, but I’ve seen more and more artists trying to revive it as part of the Y2K nostalgia movement in pop right now. It’s a dance track primarily, but at one point slows into an R&B bridge that provides perfect contrast to the hyper beat of the rest of the song. There’s a famous collection of songs about going ‘round (see Flo Rida’s “Right Round” or Dead or Alive’s “You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)”), and this feels like a feminine take on it–unlike the other two, they’re not about pleasuring a man but rather having fun with your girls without one: “I don’t need no man, got my kicks for free.” It’s a classic 2000s girly bop that feels fit for the modern, hot summer where everyone wants Y2K back–but hopefully with less of the sexism this time.

Lipgloss, Charli xcx & cupcakKe

It’s getting more and more rare for me to meet a Charli xcx song I don’t know, but my friend Janie somehow pulled this one out of my personal oblivion and put me onto it in early July. It’s a great cut from Number 1 Angel, the strange mixtape that existed between pre- and post-Pop 2 Charli. She leads the choruses herself but leaves the verses to rapper cupcakKe, who has become a bit of a meme for the sexual intensity of her lyrics. But they work well on this song, where her never-ending innuendos don’t feel out of place alongside Charli’s thinly veiled titular innuendo of her own. The synths bounce and play like any good summer jam, moving into a new sound towards the end in an epilogue that feels like a direct prelude to the album to come. But Number 1 Angel was meant for Charli to have fun with her new sound (it’s her first record produced by PC music artists) before she changed pop forever, and nowhere is she having more fun than with her sticky-icky lipgloss on the closing track. 

Cashgrab, Vienna Vienna

One of my best friends found Vienna Vienna through his label (Pete Wentz’s DC2D) as a protege of Fall Out Boy’s great songwriter. I liked his debut EP enough, but I had a hard time initially seeing his potential to stand out as a unique performer in the modern-day rock scene (sorry Braiden). He started to make more of a stir with his first post-EP single, “God Save The Queens,” and while I appreciated where he was going, I didn’t totally love that one either. But back in December 2024, “Queens” was one of two unreleased songs Braiden showed me through iPhone footage of his concert–and the other one was my favorite. “Cashgrab” doesn’t abandon the sound Vienna Vienna’s been working on, but instead ramps it up to the absolute max and doesn’t hold back. In the theme of recession pop, the actual plot of the song seems to revolve somewhere around doing sexual favors for landlords in exchange for free rentals, but he takes that scenario and drags out the feelings behind it like all the best poets. It’s an excellently written song. My favorite line, appearing in the chorus, is “you’re god, a lizard, just baking in the sun.” It’s such a vivid and specific image of power and luxury: the freedom to relax and take it all in. It's something we’re constantly being told to do by mental health gurus, but exists in contrast with the fast-paced, capitalistic society we have to survive in. To relish in feeling the sun on your back is a luxury few can afford, including our main character himself as he spits with disdain for the power structures he’s under. All he wants is to “let the people dance.” It’s a satirical narrative of late-stage capitalism with a hint of gay sex, and what more could I want in a song?

mangetout, Wet Leg

I really loved Wet Leg’s first record, and I never expected them to make a second. But this April, they announced moisturizer, a sophomore record for a band that had been practically silent for 3 years. This song happens to be one of the favorites of my friend Anina, and while staying at their house one weekend in July, we played it 3 times over the course of 2 days. It caught my ear (and made it onto my summer playlist), and I found myself reaching for it on every drive across town and chillier moment in the sun. It’s a classic Wet Leg song, indie rock with a touch of weirdness–they are perhaps the only band that could make a song about attraction named after snap peas and pull it off. Lead singer Rhian Teasdale infuses so much character into every song of hers, and her code-switches between silky smooth teasing and salty jabs are infectious. She’s not afraid to say what she means (“You want to fuck me/I know most people do”) and that brashness stands out amongst a sea of songs full of poetic innuendos. 

Air on a G String, Bassvictim

Every summer, I find one comically horny song and I latch on hard. This year’s is the best yet. It’s from 2024 but sounds straight out of 2014, bass pounding and club ready. It’s from electronic duo Maria Manow and Ike Clateman, known as Bassvictim (a fitting title). It’s campy in the best way: the kind that toys with being serious (“Looking at your face with my g-string poking/I’m not joking, I’m being hella serious”). Manow’s accented outfit descriptions are perhaps my favorite part of the song; I think frequently about the way she says “A-di-das.” There’s a nod to bimbos past with the “My Humps” interpolation in the bridge, recognizing the history of slightly satirical sex appeal songs, as well as club classics. The drop in the beginning is perhaps the best part, as it immediately pulls you directly into the song. It’s a great song for driving, dancing, or strutting in a g-string, and I’ve found myself blasting it at many moments I was in need of a hype song this summer.

Radio Ga Ga, Queen

One of the four shows I taught children this summer was Alice in Wonderland, but all the music was Queen (don’t ask). While this song wasn’t in the actual production, we chose it for our vocal demo (a short clip of a song the kids sing to demonstrate what they’ve learned in music class over the two weeks of camp). This meant playing it a billion times while we ran Act 1 over and over, but I never got sick of it–instead, I gained a new love for it. “Radio Ga Ga” is an anthem that feels as fresh and timely today as it did in 1984. Though it’s about the evolution of music radio (and Queen’s perceived death of its quality in the 80s), it stands well alongside the current technological transition into AI and the various protests and nostalgia said transition has spurred. As the music landscape changes, many of us have found ourselves longing for the “good old days,” putting decades-old songs back on the charts and reinvigorating the vinyl industry. Even outside of the literal relevance of the lyrics, Queen’s knack for anthemic melodies feels more needed now than ever. They manage to create songs that feel uniting, and that sense of community is often what I find myself seeking in music nowadays as it feels like it dissolves everywhere else. Hearing a bunch of children sing their hearts out to this song made me feel inspired–just maybe the kids will be alright. At least for now, we can still put the iPhones and Labubus away and come together to sing songs and make art in real life. And backstage, I was always singing along. 

Give Me Everything, Pitbull, AFROJACK, Ne-Yo, & Nayer

It would feel incomplete to memorialize this summer without a nod to Mr. Worldwide himself. My coworker Eliza had a great affinity for Pitbull as hype music, which we came to rely on more and more to survive long days full of theater children. Out of our camp Pitbull rotation (a shocking amount of his songs are technically clean), this was my favorite. It’s the epitome of the Pitbull formula: verses from him full of creative innuendos between lines about late-stage capitalism, a euphoric and slightly ominous chorus by a sweet-tongued guest vocalist, and a pre-chorus on an alternate melody that provides the perfect harmonic contrast to expand the feel of the song exponentially. I’ve noticed Pitbull having a resurgence lately, and I think it’s because he manages to capture an actually relatable kind of party experience: you knew your rent was gonna be late about a week ago, but you’re going to ignore it in favor of a good time tonight. It’s an element of what is commonly called “recession pop,” which is having its own moment as we seem to head into American economic doom once again. Y2K isn’t just trending for low-waisted jeans, but because we’re reaching desperately for the art that got us through this once before. No matter what hardships one may be facing, Pitbull has “been there, done that.” I have to wonder if Mr. Worldwide has ever had to teach 48 children dressed as Wonderland characters to perform all 6 minutes of Bohemian Rhapsody–I’m sure at some point he’s gotten around to it. 

Action Cat, Gerard Way

I suspect this fall it’s time to finally get over maintaining my dignity and fall in love with Gerard Way’s solo album Hesitant Alien. I’ve liked everything I’ve ever heard from it, but I’ve held off on actually paying it any attention for the sake of not having to say I was listening to Gerard Way’s music while I continue to claim myself as a non-emo (no matter how much effort my friends have put into converting me). Then again, I did go see My Chemical Romance in concert this July, so I’m not sure there’s much point in that anymore. This song came across my headphones in June, as part of a gift one of my dearest friends made for me as I graduated high school and prepared to leave him behind to follow my dreams. He said the song felt comforting to him, and that the lyrics were relevant because he was about to miss me, and he hoped I’d miss him too. Writing this in August, I can tell him I do. The benefit of delaying my work on this list until August is that a few days ago I did the big scary thing: I moved to New York City. “Action Cat” was the song I put on as the plane took off from my hometown. It was my chosen soundtrack for closing a 4-year-long chapter of my life, one that my friends emerged at the forefront of. Stepping on that flight meant leaving behind a number of people I love, and that hurt, even as I’m excited for what is coming next. I miss them a lot already. And I know I’ll come back to this song each time, like a blanket of memories stitched from Los Angeles sun and late nights on the couches of people who have changed my life for the better. I miss you too. 

Make Waves Music, Vol. 7: Memento

My final act as co-president of the label was to help put out the 7th Make Waves Music album. As the closer to my proudest year of work, Memento will mean a lot to me forever. I also believe, aside from personal bias, it’s absolutely the best record we’ve ever put out. I spent months blasting these songs from our Google Drive because I couldn’t wait for them to be released. This album is full of incredible young artists, and I’m so honored to have had a hand in it. One of my unexpected favorite songs on it is “Blind,” by a duo called Hostess that I didn’t know that well before the record. But lead singer Siena Plas showed out with powerhouse '90s rock vocals that I had no idea were in her, and drummer Dominic Sadeghi shines throughout the whole track. I’m not usually one to pay much attention to drums, but he demands it–it’s impossible to miss his presence, which is a tricky thing to pull off as an instrumentalist in a duo with a vocalist. I’ve blasted this whenever I get to drive fast, because it makes me feel like the main character of a 2000s teen movie, much like many others on this list. My favorite song on it is one I’ve been waiting for the release of since I first heard it a year ago, when Youthoric auditioned for a spot on the label at the beginning of their sophomore year. I was left so stunned that I immediately privately told our secretary I wanted to A&R them to beat everyone else to it, and it might’ve been the best decision I made all year. They were incredible artists to work with in the end of my time here, and even through a couple of lineup shifts, consistently produced great songs and were some of the best people to be around. The song that made it on the record, “Everything,” has amazed me equally, whether the first or 50th time I’ve heard it. It reminds me most of an old Coldplay song I dearly love, with a touch of Radiohead and lead singer Kevin Costumbre’s icon Jeff Buckley. It builds beautifully and lusciously, taking its time to revel in feeling and sound until it breaks at 4 minutes into one of the best instrumental bridges I know. I get chills every time I hear it. I’m so proud of them, and I hope to see their careers go very far. One of my other favorites is “LA’s Best,” a great track from Na’lij P and Navonne Love, a rap duo I’ve been lucky to see grow immensely over the last two years. There’s also “Your Walls,” which is perhaps Tr3!’s most experimental released song, but to finally hear his voice singing melody after four years of rap feels just as rewarding as Billie Eilish’s scream debut in “Happier Than Ever.” “Be My Girl” is a track I adore from the other artist I worked with this past semester, Ben Dorres. It’s a classic rock song with a killer guitar solo from Ben himself. “I Can’t Lose” is another wonderful song from I.C. King, perhaps the artist I’m most impatient to see blow up. He makes music on the level of J.Cole at only 16, and he indeed hasn’t lost yet. My last favorite is “JVK,” a final hurrah of an experimental track from 3 entirely different artists who’ve been on the label for years. It stuns me every time how well they were able to combine their artistry into a song that sounds completely cohesive but still shows off each of them individually, and is nothing like any other song I’ve ever heard. This track is the closer to the album and the closer to this part of my life, and I couldn’t be prouder. 

Virgin, Lorde

Lorde’s Melodrama is one of my favorite albums of all time, and was written to soundtrack New York City. She took a vacation to California for Solar Power, but on Virgin, she’s back in town. It feels like a sequel to Melodrama, both in sound and poetry–Melodrama was a record about learning how to be young, and Virgin looks back from the adult she’s become and contemplates how she ended up the woman she always dreamed of being. She meditates on pleasure, gender, daughterhood, with the same care as the great poets: telling stories through glimpses of pivotal moments (“After the ecstasy, testing for pregnancy, praying in MP3” or “Knew when I felt it hit, stood in the park under the eclipse” or “Soap, washing him off my chest”). She lets us in on her point of view in a literal way, giving the listener a journey through her life in the city and her journal entries cataloguing her own history. My favorites are Shapeshifter, for its upbeat sound and avoidant-attachment philosophy, Clearblue, for its stunning poetic writing (an accapella song with the best climax on the record), Hammer, for serving as the perfect table of contents to the record to come, and David, for being one of the most passionate and moving closers I’ve heard. Lorde takes us on an emotional journey that is the product of a lifetime, looking at everything like new as it feels like nothing is anymore. It’s a beautiful record, and I’ll be spending a lot of time with it through my own journey into New York City over the next four years. Lorde has served as a soundtrack to some of my most pivotal moments, and it feels sometimes like she wrote this new album just for my new life. 

you can listen to this month's playlist here: