Both Shaelan and I listen to music which we feel matches the vibes of a particular season. Currently, I’m located in the humid sub-tropics of St. Louis, Missouri, where our summers are absolutely brutal – the heat surges well into the 100s and the humidity just makes it worse. I hope you’ll understand that this contributes to a difference in methodology between mine and Shaelan’s Shae-Lists. Just to survive the awful season, I had to take the energy this summer was giving to me and throw it right back in its face! With all that said, these are my most listened to songs of the summer.

Bazooka Joe – Big Black

There’s a style of noise rock with the unfortunate name of “pigfuck” – I wish I was joking. This type of music prides itself on its abrasive punk attitude and sloppy industrial and distorted sound. You would think that with such a description I’ve provided for the genre that it wouldn’t make for anything catchy enough to put on repeat, but you would be mistaken! Bazooka Joe’s main riff is so powerful and yet so simple that it begs to be repeated. That ferocious sound the band plays with becomes addictive to me and provided an excellent backdrop for the veritable blast furnace I was subjected to since May.

Before I Move Off – Mount Kimbe

Sometimes, albums have only a few truly great songs – Crooks & Lovers by Mount Kimbe is an instance of such a thing. It’s a decent indietronica and dubstep record but this song is easily the best distillation of all its best elements. It’s groovy and warm, with a looped guitar line and chopped-and-pitched vocal samples. It’s a little odd, but all its little disparate aspects come together to make a fun and breezy tune.

Who Are You? – Void

Despite being around 68 square miles, Washington DC has so many fantastic underground punk bands and releases that it rivals any other localized punk scene. Void is just another drop in the DC Hardcore bucket. “Who Are You?” proved to be a great summation of an oddly cynical point in the life of a not-so-cynical person. I felt alienated and exhausted by everything around me, and this song helped channel the energy out by screaming the lyrics alone in my car.

In A Big Country – Big Country

The Crossing is a great album by Scottish new wave and celtic rock band Big Country. If you’re familiar with any song of theirs, it’s probably this one. While this song is fantastic, the whole record is just as good. If you like the driving, energetic, and youthful main riff (that classic new wave sound that feels like everything is triumphant) and the infectious chorus on this song, then I see no reason why you shouldn’t listen to the rest of the record.

GROWING PAINS – Yeat

I wouldn’t really call myself a Yeat fan, but his new EP, Dangerous Summer, was a surprisingly great listen. It had that hyper-melodic element and wild energy in spades that I expect out of this relatively new hip-hop subgenre called “Rage“. Its best song feels a little out of step within the genre conventions, however. It isn’t meant to hype you up – instead, it’s a somber and beautiful track about his growth as a musician from a bright-eyed newcomer to an established artist. Ethereal background vocals, glitchy and stuttering pianos, and Yeat’s knack for writing choruses come together on the song to create a one-of-a-kind ode to personal growth.

Chains & Whips – Clipse, Kendrick Lamar

Let God Sort Em Out is, for me and many other music fans, our album of the year. It is a fantastic comeback record from one of hip-hop’s best duos. My favorite track was “Chains & Whips”. The electric guitar in the instrumental made for a perfect backdrop for three of the best rappers ever to spit some absolutely fantastic and cold-blooded verses.

Community – JID, Clipse

As far as newer rappers are concerned, JID really should be in the conversation of best in his generation. His flows are always so fluid and effortless and his writing is top-tier. This is just as true as ever on his new album, God Does Like Ugly. Coincidentally, this track happens to feature Pusha T and No Malice of Clipse. Even outside of their own material, this year they’re still giving their guest verses all they have in terms of conviction and lyrical ability.

Adieu – Lou-Ardiane Cassidy

I can’t say too much about this, because it’ll spoil an upcoming review. All I’ll say is that there were days I had to force myself to stop listening to this song. I listened to it to talk about the album itself and ended up not being able to put the song down.

You Get What You Give – New Radicals

Sometimes 90’s pop rock one-hit wonders are all you really need. To me, this is the sound of hopeful, youthful defiance. It’s a song for everyone who feels the struggle to eke out a meager existence in our maddening world. It’s raucous, it’s liberating, it’s positive that everything will turn out okay in the end, and it’s what I needed.

Amoeba – Adolescents

It’s just a great, classic hardcore song with two crazy, out-of-control guitar solos. The lyrics in the song are about some sort of science experiment gone wrong; I always appreciate some good ol’ sci-fi. Actually, it reminds me of Food of The Gods by H.G. Wells. My love for science fiction is not what makes me enjoy the song: it’s the solos, the memorable melodic chorus and the energy I crave from hardcore punk.

Deceptacon – Le Tigre

Le Tigre has an interesting sound. It’s an amalgamation of new wave, dance-punk and the feminist punk scene known as riot grrrl. Together they make for a song just as danceable and groovy as it vivacious and thrilling.

Refugee – Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers

I burnt myself out on classic rock years ago – it’s when I got into my “indie only” phase. I’m slowly coming back around to classic rock. It’s a slow process, but it’s hard not to enjoy this absolute barn burner of a song. Petty’s raspy-yet-powerful voice screeching over the organs and driving electric guitars are hard to ignore and even harder to not get excited about.

Reparations – Cursed

I come back to this track for one lyric: “A better world, what would you do in a better world?” It’s an important question to ask whenever I become distraught at how the powers that be do their best to actively make it worse for a profit incentive. It also helps that the main riff is absolutely killer. I love the sludge-influenced hardcore sound this Ontario band employs.

Codeine Crazy – Future

Future is an artist as fun to listen to as he can be tiring. For all his toxic and misogynistic lyrics, lackadaisical enunciation, and just plain boring song ideas, he comes up with just as much enthralling flows, intoxicating singing and he has a true knack for song structure – and he’s a pioneer for the psychedelic trap sound. All of the positive elements of his music are here in great quantity on “Codeine Crazy”.

Put It On Da Floor – Latto, Cardi B

It’s that hot girl shit! Latto and Cardi spit their hearts out and give a lot of great energy. The beat is super simple, almost skeletal, but it does all it needs to do to empower the two rappers to say the most fun embodiment of heteronormative feminine braggadocio.

Fuck & Run – Liz Phair

Phair so eloquently puts to song many of the frustrations I have dealt with in a lot of my romantic endeavors. Honestly, I feel like this song could be relatable to lot of people, regardless if they had a one-night stand or not. Just the idea that you’re never going to find love is a paralyzing feeling I’ve dealt with a lot recently, and it’s comforting to hear someone else voice those opinions.

Obscene Humanity – Nails

Nails’ debut album Unsilent Death is absolutely fantastic – it’s one of the best powerviolence records ever. “Obscene Humanity” is my favorite song from the record; the riff is so cathartic and explosive, it melds so perfectly with the monstrous sound of the album.

Age of Consent – New Order

Do you ever have a song that just seems to always follow you throughout your life? Do you have a song you never get tired of and that you can always find a time and place for? I call those “forever songs”, and “Age of Consent” is one of those for me. It’s perfect, from the opening baselines to the guitar and synth solos, the whole thing front-to-back is so fantastic.

Black Flag Freestyle – Denzel Curry, That Mexican OT

Pretty much the whole summer, I listened to King of the Mischievous South Vol. 2 (KOTMS II) by Denzel Curry every day after work. “Black Flag Freestyle” is my favorite track from the whole mixtape. I love the dark and sinister instrumental, and while Denzel Curry provides a good hook and verse, That Mexican OT really steals the show with a fantastic performance.

Hurt – Nine Inch Nails

These past 12 months have been bad. It hasn’t been like “heroin addiction” bad like what the song’s about, but it was a super depressing time in my life. It wasn’t without positive moments, and really this song, in a way, makes me realize that there are things to keep fighting for and that life is worth living, even if often doesn’t feel like it. I think it’s the last few lines that do it for me: “If I could start again / A million miles away / I would keep myself / I would find a way”. I think just about everyone has a different interpretation of what these final lines mean. To me, we don’t ever “start again” – nothing ever exists in a vacuum – but we do “keep ourselves” and we do “find a way”. As far as I know, I have one life to lead, so in my darkest hour I hear these words and I know I can’t change what I did in the past, but I do influence my future. That’s me “finding a way”. I will find a way to get through it because that’s all that I can do. I got through this year and I’ll get through the next one, and every other painful time in my life. In the end, I’ll get through them all, but it will still hurt.

So that’s Leah’s Summer 2025 Shae-List. It got kind of personal, more personal than I would’ve liked, but music is a very personal thing for many people (including myself) and this just so happened to be a turbulent time for me. I would feel inadequate as a music writer if I didn’t honestly portray how music has an effect on me. I hope the next Shae-List I write will be along the lines of “I like x song because it sounds good!”, though it would probably be boring and make my job harder because I would have nothing to write about.