THE RACKET : LIST 34 - Hot summer.

Prince has a new album. Or a new posthumous album. An album he hated so much he recorded it, put it on the shelf and left it gather purple dust at Paisley Park. And because Prince is a genius (took me a while to realize this and I am now fully in support of what can and should be deemed the absolute truth) of course the album he hated so much he needed to hide it from the world is absolutely amazing.

Specifically “Hot Summer”, a song that is so enjoyably, obnoxiously catchy it made me want to build a playlist around it. A playlist that captured the heat of a, ahem, hot summer. And though I’m usually remiss to make a playlist based on a season (except for of course Christmas, because all of the great seasonal tracks stem from a religious-holiday-turned-consumer-bonanza), this playlist sort of waves a hand at the idea. It’s got a bit of sunshine, a bit of heat, a touch of the wonky middle place where you’ve had too many rays but the night is starting to cool you off. It isn’t summer exactly, but it roots around at the edges.