OTHER SUMMER JAMS? 2008 VERSION
Lil' Wayne, "Lollipop."
Personally, I love it that all these rappers are getting positively baroque with the vocoder.

Death Cab for Cutie, "I Will Possess Your Heart."
I don't even like this band. At all. But this song kills, absolutely kills.

To qualify as a summer jam, a song must exist simultaneously in the past, the present, and the future. It must have a timeless appeal, as though specific sequences of your genetic chain, long dormant, await both this particular hook or melody and warm summer months in order to come to full expression.

A summer jam must also be so of the moment, so au currant, so immediate, that it renders frozen time itself. A good summer jam will freeze into golden amber instances during which it is heard, so that these friends, this car-ride, that barbecue are instants of utter summery perfection.

Finally, the perfect summer jam should trigger a deep nostalgia. For, like a snowflake on a fingertip, the crystalline moment that is the essence of the summer jam has already passed. The moment is over, and in fact, the moment never existed in the first place. You can recognize a summer jam the very first time you hear it when you recognize that you are already listening to it next fall, or winter, or years from now.