Tom: It’s time for the worst song of the summer! Actually, that’s an overstatement, nothing could beat that Peter Dickson atrocity, but it comes pretty close.
Tom: If you’re a certain age, then there’s one thing that Mungo Jerry’s “In The Summertime” will remind you of: don’t drink and drive public service announcements. This new version has creatively removed that lyric by putting a dodgy rap over the top of it. “Everybody loves summertime” has to be one of the most insipid lyrics I’ve heard in a long while. Oh, and stop giving yourself shoutouts, people. You’re not famous enough to do that without sounding like a tit.
Tim: My very first thought when this started playing was ‘ooh, this is like Barbie Girl.’ Then it turned out it wasn’t in the slightest, and it all went downhill from there.
Tom: Why are they releasing this in early September, otherwise known as “the start of autumn”?
Tim: It is a bit odd. It might just be me, but a load of songs seem to be like that this year. Alexandra Burke’s was all summery, Inna’s tune would normally have been released mid-June, and there’s this, a dance tune that’s still just on the verge of arriving and continues the season’s weird instrument trend by including a pipe organ.
Tom: Did Mungo Jerry need auto-tuning? No, he didn’t. Did he actually need to turn up for the video? Well, I suspect he needed the money. Speaking of the video, let’s deconstruct this for a minute. First of all, Bluestone is the spitting image of Nathan Barley – I think it’s the glasses – which really set me against him from the start. I realise that’s slightly hypocritical coming from a twenty-something middle-class white guy who’s living in London and earning his living doing web stuff, but there you go.
Second up: panning to the rest of the studio and then flash-cutting so the crew become attractive and female? That’s one of the most insidiously sexist music videos I’ve seen in a long time – it’s not just “look at these attractive women“, it’s “oh wow women can be technical crew! Wait, no they can’t, come out here and dance, ladies“.
Tim: You’re complaining about sexism in the video – did you listen to the lyrics? This is a, well, song, for want of a better word, containing the lines:
When the sunshine come out, the best girls come out,
Chicks dress to impress, like whoa.
So, umm, yeah. I’ll be honest: I don’t think this song has any redeeming features whatsoever. Part of me hopes it actually is some sort of Nathan Barley spin-off in disguise, because at least then there would be an excuse for its existence. As it is, it’s just a soul-draining three minutes of noise.