It’s finally here: the cricket’s on the telly, the prawns are sizzling on the barbie, a trickle of sweat drips down the back of your neck, your Dad’s just texted you to say, “Gunna be a scorcher today!” It’s summertime, baby!
Every summer needs a soundtrack. Nay, an anthem. That song. That contagious, maddeningly catchy earworm that dominates the airwaves for those beautiful warm months between Halloween (October 31) and International Rare Disease Day (February 28). The backing track to your beach days, parties, barbeques and road trips. Unavoidable, inescapable, so popular and omnipresent you’d hear it if you lived in a yurt in Siberia.
The song of the summer. Upbeat, fun, easy. A song that gets you moving, no matter where you are, singing along without even realising it. But not all songs of summer are created equal. They can be good (Teenage Dream by Katy Perry, As It Was by Harry Styles), bad (Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO, Hotline Bling by Drake) and yeesh, ugly (Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke, Last Night by Morgan Wallen). Sometimes they’re sexy (Hips Don’t Lie by Shakira), and sometimes they’re straight-up bizarre (Old Town Road by Lil Nas X).
And, of course, they can be wildly underappreciated. After all, there can be only one. Allow me to transport you to a decade ago, the heady summer of 2015. Malcolm Turnbull had just become PM after knifing Tony Abbott (remember when Australian politics was basically Game of Thrones?), Michelle Payne became the first woman to win the Melbourne Cup, and people flocked to air-conditioned cinemas to watch Minions and escape the record-breaking heatwave. On the radio, music’s biggest hitmakers jostled for position in a crowded field: What Do You Mean? by Justin Bieber, Lean On by Major Lazer, Can’t Feel My Face by The Weeknd, Shut Up and Dance by Walk The Moon. But none of them could canter past that year’s ultimate song of the summer: Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk.
And somewhere in the maelstrom, gasping for air, clawing its way to the top for the briefest of moments before being pushed back down by a ruthless and unapologetic Bruno, was one of the best summer songs of the century: Sugar by Robin Schulz, feat. Francesco Yates.
You know it, you’ve heard it, even if the tune hasn’t sprung immediately to mind: “You’ve got me lifted, drifted higher than the ceiling/Oh, baby, it’s the ultimate feeling… Sugar, how you get so fly?” Oh yes, it was buried in your subconscious, and now it’s bouncing around in your head like the DVD logo screensaver. You’re welcome.
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It did have a moment – Sugar peaked briefly at No.3 on the Australian charts and went to No.1 in a few European countries. But it climbed to only No.21 in the UK and No.44 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and has left little cultural footprint despite having amassed 1 billion streams since its release a decade ago.
