Songs of summers past.

The “song of the summer” ain’t what it used to be. For the first several decades of the pop-music era, there were always those inescapable monster hits you’d hear all over the radio, from passing cars, blaring from windows from May to September. Love them or hate them, they’d be forever bound up with everyone’s memories of that summer.

Now that we all choose what we want to listen to from a million different options and listen to them on our little personal devices like these X-Mini Max mobile speakers, its much harder for any song to break through and leave an imprint on the wider consciousness. Maybe it’s just that I (that is, Meh writer @JasonToon) am old and out-of-touch. But when I looked up the #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week of June 26 for every year since 1960, it was hard to escape the conclusion that the big summer hits used to matter more.

50 years ago this week, the charts were topped by the Beatles’ “Paperback Writer”:

It would be a smug Baby Boomer move to just say “case closed”. So let’s flip through the crate of past late-June #1s that might not quite be the Beatles, but that boast a greatness - or at least an indelible catchiness - all their own. Four years after “Paperback Writer”, the top record in the country was the Jackson 5’s absolute stormer “The Love You Save”:

And speaking of Boomer nostalgia, the #1 hit this week in 1965 was that obligatory soundtrack to any movie or TV show about the ‘60s, the Byrds’ “Mr. Tambourine Man”. But scrub those Time-Life infomercials out of your ears and it still sounds pretty great:

Will any of this century’s hits last this long? OK, wedding-goers in the year 2052 will probably still bounce like sweaty idiots to “Hot in Herre”, Nelly’s ridiculous, unstoppable 2002 smash:

That propulsive funk hook is right in line with the summer dance-floor smashes of decades past, like Marvin Gaye’s “Got To Give It Up”, the Billboard #1 this week in 1977:

And Anita Ward’s only hit, the #1 “Ring My Bell” from late June 1979. One-hit wonders are another summertime tradition, and Ward made the most of hers:

Those “poooow” flourishes could drive a strong man insane. But being irresistibly annoying has never hurt summer hits. Take the #1 from this week in 1967. Just whistle that nagging earworm hook and everyone will know it’s “Windy” by the Association:

No survey of summer chart-toppers could be complete without at least one overwrought ballad, preferably with sultry/terrible saxophone spiraling into the summer night. Debbie Gibson’s June 1988 #1 “Foolish Beat” has all that, plus some primo late-'80s visuals. Not my favorite song, I admit, but pretty well-crafted for the youngest person ever to write, produce, and sing a #1 hit:

It speaks volumes about how awful pop music was in the late '80s and early '90s that “Foolish Beat” is the best of this week’s #1s from those years. The next three June 27ths after that, the space was occupied by Milli Vanilli, New Kids on the Block, and Paula Abdul.

At 18, Gibson makes Phil Everly (then 21) and Don Everly (23) look like they were veteran pros when they wrote and recorded their own chart-topping heart-tugger, “Cathy’s Clown”, #1 this week in 1960:

As I said, I’m old, but it’s hard to imagine any of the recent summer hits sounding that good in 56 years. My favorite June 26 #1 of this century, “Umbrella” by Rihanna with Jay-Z from 2007, stands the best chance:

Of course, there are still pop smashes so monstrous not even I can stumble around unawares. It’s just a lot more difficult for any song to break through. As with most symptoms of our increasing social division into little silos of shared taste, I have mixed feelings. I’m glad I can spend this June 26 listening to anything I want rather than Captain & Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together” (#1 this week in 1975) or “Heaven” by Bryan Adams (1985). But it’s also a little sad that there will be fewer songs that evoke a certain time for everyone who hears them.

On that score, I guess these X-Mini Max speakers are more social than earbuds, at least. And if there’s one thing these summer jams and all pop hits have in common, it’s this: they’re produced to sound good coming out of small speakers.