As the end of the summer is rapidly upon us, it’s time to
declare a “Song of the Summer”….and the uncontested winner for 2019 is....
“Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X !
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| Rehoboth boardwalk - Photo by Dough4872 via Creative Commons |
What else could it be? If you haven’t heard it, what hermit
cave did you crawl into, back in April? It’s high time you came out! By mid-July,
that ubiquitous ear-worm had already locked down its claim on the Billboard “Song
of the Summer” title: See https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/8520151/lil-nas-x-old-town-road-leads-songs-of-the-summer-chart
It’s already sold so much so quickly, it’s on track to take the
title of “Song of the Decade.”*
And now we move on to contenders for the 2019 Summer
Blockbuster Movie:
[from The-Numbers.com movie data website: https://www.the-numbers.com/market/2019/top-grossing-movies]
Rank Title Studio Genre Gross Tickets Sold
1 Avengers:
Endgame Walt Disney Action $858,070,646 94,189,972
2 The Lion King
Walt Disney Children $487,407,985 53,502,523
3 Toy Story 4 Walt Disney Children $422,793,307 46,409,803
4 Spider-Man:
Far From Home Sony Action $374,624,545 41,122,343
5 Aladdin Walt
Disney Children $353,296,257 38,781,147
Not a real adult movie among them. Nor a single original – they’re
all remakes, sequels, or part of a series.
Here’s where I admit that I have not seen any of
the top five 2019 box-office smash hits listed above. Why? Possibly because I’m decades and decades over their
target demographic -- which seems to start around age 8 and stop at the upper end of the Millennial generation.
Well, I don’t care how many tickets have been sold, or how far these summer juggernauts have pushed MY personal pick down the ranks of contenders for the title of Greatest Summer Blockbuster Of ALL Time ....and that would be the original 1975 Jaws. I’m not alone in this judgment, either; it was proclaimed by Entertainment
Weekly back in 2014: “Jaws: The Best Summer Blockbuster of All Time.”
….And it’s also a strong contender for the scariest film of
all time
….And the scariest movie theme, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvCI-gNK_y4
Now I don’t want to leave you on this fine summer evening on such a menacing note, so let me cap this column off with the happiest “Song of
the Summer” ever written – the super-bouncy, clap-along sounds of the Pharell’s
2013 hit, HAPPY:
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* While “Old Town Road” is already being hailed already as the Song of
the Decade, I have not yet seen an updated list of "Greatest Songs of the Summer Ever" that includes it. The last Billboard list of greatest summer songs that I could find was from 2017:
https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop-shop/6634535/100-biggest-summer-songs-of-all-time.
And let me put in a plug for my own previous consideration of this topic in a “Still
Life with Robin” column from four years ago [August 15, 2015]: http://alllifeislocal.blogspot.com/2015/08/still-life-with-robin-sans-song-of.html
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Still Life with Robin is published on the Cleveland Park Listserv and on All Life Is Local on Saturdays.
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