It's dreary and mild as hell out for late May where I currently am, but nevertheless, it's the first day of summer, so I'm obligated to do this annual post of mine where I tell you all about my standby playlist for the season: An Endless Capri Sun or Juicyfruit or Starburst Commercial from Like the Summer of 2002. Just imagine the soundtrack to an idyllic TV ad from either of those brands from way back when and you've got two and a half hours of good, sunshining bliss here, with a full package of big beat, trip hop, chillout, house tunes, and some alt-rock and pop-rock too. It's the sound of the turn of the millennium, when collective optimism was running at what felt like such an all-time high, because the promise of an increasingly accessible and evolving, societally transformational technology called the internet was on the cusp of ushering us into a whole new era of enlightenment. Clearly, we were *very* wrong about so much of this, and now powerful people are trying to pull the same strings with AI too, but a lot of us are understandably a lot more cynical about it this time around.
Anyway, even though things definitely didn't transpire like so many of us thought they would, a lot of the music from back then was genuinely bright, positive, and carefree, and that's what a summer playlist should be. Not all of these selections were such major hits in the States, but a lot of them still shaped the turn-of-the-millennium sound anyway, by coursing through so many of our commercials, movies, TV shows, and videogames instead. On it, you'll find the following: Republica, The Vines, Smash Mouth, Paul Oakenfold, Blue Boy, Vitamin C, Len, New Radicals, The Wise Guys, Bran Van 3000, Groove Armada, Crazy Town, Gorillaz, The Shapeshifters, Phats & Small, Eric Prydz, Daft Punk, Scanty Sandwich, Basement Jaxx, Primal Scream, Chumbawamba, Harvey Danger, Moby, Sugar Ray, some act you've probably never heard of before called Puracane who cover a Jane's Addiction song, and, of course, the one and only Fatboy Slim. And it's ordered in a way to make the whole thing feel like a DJ mix too, so avoid shuffling it if you can, and turn on your Spotify crossfader to somewhere around 5 seconds 😎.
