Readers Poll: What Are Your Favorite Summer Albums?

You know technically if you live in Houston, summer never really goes away. It just sort of lingers on top of the region, every now and then rousing from slumber to pound us with heat and humidity.

Northern parts of the country have a firm line separating the seasons, but thankfully global warming is fixing that so we can all be miserable at the same time.

Last week I asked our fans on the Rocks Off Facebook wall what albums reminded them most of summer, because we are in the midst of a hellish heat wave that more than likely won't end until late October.

It wasn't surprising that the music that most evoked summer for our friends on the Great Blue Satan also ran parallel with some of the most syrupy, guilt-ridden rock pleasures of the past 20 years. Sugar Ray, Smash Mouth, and Third Eye Blind? Yep.

The Dandy Warhols' ...The Dandy Warhols Come Down was a favorite of our friend Shan too. Newer acts like Surfer Blood and Minus the Bear also were mentioned.

My all-time summer albums are The Notorious B.I.G.'s Life After Death, Bad Religion's 80-85, and blink-182's Enema Of The State. Yes, I grew up in the suburbs. Smash Mouth's "All-Star" will forever be etched into my brain from my first summer job as a maintenance boy at a gym in Pearland, and picking used tampons up off the floor in the women's locker room. All that glitters is gold...

Smash Mouth

Two friends lauded the SoCal group's Fush Yu Mang and its followup Astro Lounge as prime summer picks, or maybe I can't decipher sarcasm anymore.

Third Eye Blind

The band's first album gets mentioned more these days than you would think, especially from friends in garage and punk bands. There's something about the hooks and choruses that keeps people coming back. That and the musty nostalgia of a time before everything you listened to had to be vetted by Maximumrocknroll.

LFO

"LFO! Not fucking LMFAO!" says Todd Spoth, guitarist for Houston's own Square and Compass. Lyte Funkie Ones may have been the weakest link in the boy band devolution of the late '90s, but now "Summer Girls" is like a time capsule from 1999, when Abercrombie & Fitch was still cool.