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Welcome to Top Ten Tuesdays! A new series here on Casa de Campo Living, bringing you Top Ten lists every Tuesday. For our maiden voyage we’ll be breaking down ten hits to enjoy your summertime to, with an integrated 8tracks playlist!
OK. Let’s be honest here. We’ve all been reading too much Buzzfeed. There are more Top _ Lists on the internet than ever before. Every single dang website and their mother has a Top-Some-Number-Or-Another-List now! And I am sick of i- what’s that? Top Ten Tuesdays? Playlists with 8tracks integration? Cool pictures?
NEVER MIND WHAT I SAID, TOP TEN LISTS ARE AMAZING, WELCOME TO TOP TEN TUESDAYS, LET’S GO.
For our very first Top Ten Tuesday, we’ll be giving our Top Ten, in no particular order, of cool, upbeat songs that are lovely to enjoy a summer’s day to, be it upbeat ones to jog or go about your daily routine, or relaxed, poppy rhythms to unwind at the poolside. Plus, we’re going to integrate whichever Top Ten articles that have music in them with playlists made from our account over at 8tracks! Feel free to follow us over at @cdcliving. If you like it, feel free to let us know on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram with #TopTenTuesdays! The playlist is below, let’s go!
(To hear the playlist in the order listed below, click the link and listen to it on the 8tracks website, the embed player will shuffle the order)
1. Quicksand – Miles Kane
Don’t be fooled by the dark, broody looking album artwork, Quicksand is actually a delightful summer number to start off with, with a classic beat and a fantastic hook full of bop’s and la’s guaranteed to stick in your head – and we mean that in the best sense! Guitarist Miles Kane isn’t exactly known for poppy, summer tunes, but whenever he does venture into them for songs such as Quicksand and his 2011 hit Rearrange, you can’t doubt he’s got a knack for it!
2. Carried Away – Passion Pit
Passion Pit is a fantastic band for anyone who likes upbeat pop. Songwriter Michael Angelakos is a master lyricist and songwriter, a tried and true sonic craftsman, who writes thoughtful lyrics and wraps them around poppy beats and incredible hooks. Their 2012 breakthrough album, Gossamer, led the U.S. Album Charts with Carried Away, as well as other instant-hit tracks, such as Take a Walk and Constant Conversations, who had to fight this song (granted, in my head) for their place on this list.
3. Fred Astaire – San Cisco
Australians have a knack for making fantastic, summer-y music, with acts such as Vance Joy, Courtney Barnett, and San Cisco gracing stages on summer festivals around the world with their infectiously cheery tunes. This third song on our little playlist adventure is San Cisco’s Fred Astaire, an ode to how no boyfriend will ever compare to the grace of the legendary jazzer. This, delivered through sparkly-clean guitar strumming and a fantastic steady beat, makes Fred Astaire a shoo-in for this list.
4. Don’t Leave Me (Ne Me Quitte Pas) – Regina Spektor
Russian-American singer-songwriter and anti-folk artist (wow, lots of hyphens there), Regina Spektor is a classically trained pianist gone rogue, preferring to create an extremely intricate and unique brand of music that sounds like the classical musicians of yesteryear got a crack at the modern music scene. This song, however, is different from Spektor’s usual, more melodically and lyrically complicated music, choosing to instead dabble with a bubbly keyboard riff and jazz trumpet, and the change is greatly appreciated, the song being an absolute ten out of ten.
5. You Make My Dreams Come True – Hall & Oates
I’ve always been against the idea of a song being “an oldie, but a goodie”; since that “but” implies that a song’s age somehow lessens its likeliness of being old – and case and point, here’s a straight-up classic: Hall & Oates’s “You Make My Dreams Come True”, a song so incredibly infectiously happy that you just can’t help tapping feet, bopping your head, and dancing to it when alone with a hairbrush microphone. We’d like to recommend a quick look at the YouTube video for the scene this song features in in the 2009 film 500 Days of Summer, which actually wins over the song’s music video by far in just sheer enjoyability. Listen to two seconds of this hit and you’ll know why it’s on this list.
6. In the Summertime – Mungo Jerry
If you don’t know this song, then find a way to get comfortable in that rock you’ve been living under, because you’re in for a real treat. “In the Summertime” is a classic, piano-driven folky jam that makes you want to whistle along – including all your friends who think they can whistle. The song is just classic stuff, the title’s really convenient, and it’s an absolute classic one-hit wonder – I assure you if I had ever mentioned Mungo Jerry you wouldn’t have known what I was talking about, but as soon as you hear that little piano intro, you know you’re on board, regardless of whether you’ve heard it.
7. Don’t Be A Stranger – Lewis Fieldhouse
And so we transition from the two oldies to “Don’t Be A Stranger”, a lovely song that sounds like it could’ve come out the same year as the previous two, but is actually one of the newest songs on this list, having been released in June 2013 as part of British singer-songwriter Lewis Fieldhouse’s 2013 EP Born Human, Raised Human. When coming up with songs for this list, there was no doubt in my mind that Lewis Fieldhouse would be on it in some way, and it was a tough choice when it came to deciding between Don’t Be A Stranger and Dances, a fantastic song written as part of his side project, Larrapin, with American singer-songwriter Bryarly Bishop (which you should still most definitely check out, regardless). But eventually, this song had to win. The lyrics just sound so infectiously happy, like they were sung by somebody who couldn’t get a smile off his face. The mixing does his voice and the mostly acoustic instruments a huge favor, with the entire song just being absolutely fantastic on the overall.
8. Horchata – Vampire Weekend
In December, drinking Horchata… Horchata is bathed in cheery, relaxed Caribbean-based rhythms and instrumentation, and honestly, Vampire Weekend’s Horchata, written by the band’s Ezra Koenig and Rostam Batmanglij, is the one song on this list that I’m going to let speak for itself. Don’t read this other than fleetingly, just close your eyes, and give it a listen.
9. Vance Joy – Riptide
Lo and behold, as we near the end, the Aussies strike again! Vance Joy’s ukulele-driven Riptide is a fantastic acoustic number that has people jamming and singing along from their very first listen. It’s catchy, word-confusing lyrics combined by Joy’s odd, yet fitting vocals make for a great number to bop your head to.
10. She & Him – In the Sun
And so, we’ve reached the end of our Top Ten with She & Him’s In the Sun. The only song on this list that also happens to include a string quartet bopping along to preppy rhythm, the song takes Zooey Deschanel’s 20’s crooner vocals and fits them on a steady Bee-Gee-ish beat with all kinds of instrumentation arranged by the “Him” in the band title, multi-instrumentalist M. Ward. She & Him’s old school, breezy music is enough to put a smile on anyone’s face, but In the Sun excels as a particularly great summer-and-sun song to end this playlist with.