September creeped up on us a few days ago. Whilst it's not quite Autumn, and there are still summer festivals to take place, the whole back to school and "why are there Christmas-related things in the newsagents already?!?!" rage is killing our vibe. (You must have had that vibe? The sitting in a country pub garden, in a t-shirt, at 9:30 at night, feeling like this is as good as it gets...)
It would be great if we could lock summer in some sort of viscous, honey-like serum to rub all over ourselves in the winter months. For all the technology in the world, we still can't break the seal on something to re-animate all of those good feelings that hit us as the warm memories coming flooding back... unless you class music as a piece of technology? Songs do a damn fine job of taking you right back there.
Whilst we're perhaps a little prematurely nostalgic for summer 2014, we're also still not sure we totally soaked up every morsel of it. I mean, we still can't even decide what the definitive song of season even was?! Was it 'Boom Clap' or 'Word Crimes' or something else? With this confusion rumbling around our noggins this morning, following news that Calvin Harris has made Spotify's most streamed track of the summer and see a list from the Official UK chart revealing the biggest selling singles of the summer, we decided to ask the DiS community what their favourite songs of the summer were (because obviously the biggest tunes are rarely the best!). The response was fascinating and we've compiled your/their choices, alongside some staff picks and some of our editor's favourite songs of the summer. The result is a 4-hour mixture of legends who returned to cause headline-stealing chaos (Prince! Kate Bush!), big names who headlined the year's biggest events (Neil Young! Arcade Fire! Outkast!) and a wriggling heap of bodacious synths, car bonnet buckling beats and guitar riffs that will make you feel like you're swimming in bourbon (osmosis is a brilliant process).
Playlist: Sounds Like Summer '14
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We have also exported this playlist to RDIO
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Photo by Graham Shackleton from our End of the Road gallery.