Ahhh yes. It’s summer and we all know what that means: weekly trips to the beach, sandy goodness, beers and, most importantly, awesome jams. Remember high school? The Black Eyed Peas came out with “I Gotta Feeling”, you just got your license, and you were finding reasons to drive all over the place just to groove to that succulently summery song. Let’s be real here, besides repeating that “Tonight’s gonna be a good good night” over 15 times, the song keeps it pretty wonderful. No politics, no innuendos, not too crazy. All in all the song gets an A on the summer tunes scale.
Well, it’s not 2009 anymore. 2013 has taken full reign of the not-so-mild songs and flung our ear buds into political, gendered, all too serious-for-summer song madness. Here you will find a guide to these potential summer songs, with a special feminist rating. I’ll let you know which tunes that you can drive to and love which ones fall short.
“Can’t Hold Us” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis: A
Even putting my love for Macklemore aside, this song very wisely does not fall prey to antifeminist themes. While it may be debatable if this song will be in the running for a summer jam, it definitely doesn’t exploit women’s progress or the importance of consent.
“Come and Get it” by Selena Gomez: D
Wow Selena, thank you for this song. Of all the brilliant lyrics that this song presents, I especially like that she’ll be “waitin’ real patient” so the guy who she hates but loves can “come and get it” whenever he wants. She even mentions dying happy once the man loves her back. You know, there are some songs that intelligently weave misogyny into their lyrics, requiring the listener to delve to understand its antifeminism, and then there are songs like this that so blatantly stay out of touch with women’s equality that it’s astonishing they’re being written in 2013 and not 1920.
“Feel this Moment” by Pitbull and Christina Aguilera: B+
We got a women and a man, both looking to have a good time. Besides mentioning the women’s love of Fifty Shades (“especially about red rooms and tie ups”) the lyrics lean towards mutual consent and stay pretty friendly towards women. Pitbull even offers to travel the world with Christina, sounds good to me!
“Florida Georgia Line” by Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley: B
I’ll admit, most country songs are notoriously known for their overwhelming gender roles and disregard for women’s equality, but this song, while it has some rough moments, is pretty enjoyable and feminist friendly. I wish the song didn’t talk about a guy only noticing a girl when her boobs pop out of the water, but after that line the guys even mention playing guitar to their new girl interest. Now, the lyric “baby you’re a song” could go either way. For all we know they’re comparing the girl to a super fantastic gender equal jam or they could be comparing her to Selena’s aforementioned train-wreck. I hope not, because in that case the song-girl metaphor would earn this jam a much lower score.
Enjoy your summer jams with caution, not every song is truly about just tonight being a good good night.
