Summer unofficially ended yesterday (but it is not going away quietly as it hit ninety here yesterday and looks the highs look to stay above eighty for most of the week). The last couple years I have commemorated the end of summer by crowning the Peter Bjorn and John Award for Catchiest Indie Pop Song of the Summer. Unfortunately this year has not been that good for indie pop music. Of Monsters and Men, Florence + The Machine and Death Cab for Cutie's albums were mostly meh, Nate Ruess solo work just made me wish Fun would get back together, do not even get me started on the Mumford & Sons album, Beck got fun again with Dreams but that sounded like paint by numbers indie pop and not as fun or weird as his great nineties songs. Things are looking up for the fall as Chvrches is releasing a new album early in the season.
Really this summer was all about annoyingly catchy pop songs with Tori Kelly, Rachel Platten, ZZ Ward, and The Weeknd made me hate myself for liking their hit songs. Ironically the person most responsible for the annoyingly catchy pop song trend, Carly Rae Jepsen quietly put out a surprisingly good indie pop album but stupidly made the first single I Really, Really, Really, Really Like You which managed to be more annoying but less catchy than Call Me Maybe and entitling the album E•MO•TION did not help either.
But there were some decent indie pop songs out there, Brandon Flowers second solo album had some gems (again, it was hurt by a weak first single), My Morning Jacket's Big Decisions was my favorite song the band has ever done. X Ambassadors had a surprising second hit as I would have guessed Jamie N Commons would be the one to do so with last year's Jungle collaboration.
But for me, there is a clear winner for Catchiest Indie Pop Song of the Summer goes to newcomer Alessia Cara (sadly no relations to Irene) with her breakout song Here. When Lorde broke through with a nineties aesthetics I thought we were entering a culture change yet two years later self empowerment songs like Fight Song still dominate. Hopefully Here changes that, the song is so rooted in nineties music that it samples the Portishead by way of Isaac Hayes sample Glory Box. And the lyrics are just a perfect representation of basically every house party I went to in college, may favorite part being when Alessia calls out someone talking about haters who does not even have one. Awesome
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