Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Adele at the MTV Video Music Awards in August.

"Rolling In The Deep" came out last November, not when summer jams usually get released, but Adele's monster hit didn't reach its peak popularity until the summertime. The song hit No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart in May, and stayed there for seven weeks straight.

By now the music video for the song has over 123 million views on YouTube. YouTube trends manager Kevin Allocca says that it took some time for the song to gather steam. "If you look at the chart of how the views spread for that video, it wasn't until the summer that it really took off," Allocca says. "As opposed to a lot of other videos that can start off big and then taper off, or start off big and remain huge, it really grew gradually."

More Songs of the Summer

Part of what makes the case for "Rolling In The Deep" as the song of the summer is the number of people who danced to it. It may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a dance track: Adele's vocals, rather than any type of groove, are the focal point, and they lay long and heavy over a relatively flat bass kick. But that's partly what makes it such a great song to remix. The production is sparse, leaving ample room to work around her powerful voice.

Enlarge Mads Perch/Warp Records

Rustie, a.k.a. Russell Whyte, is one of Glasgow's leading producers.

Mads Perch/Warp Records

Rustie, a.k.a. Russell Whyte, is one of Glasgow's leading producers.

This week on The Record, we're looking at some of the songs that captured our attention (or held us hostage) this summer, and asking what they tell us about our standards, our anxieties and the places we want our music to take us when it's hot out. We made a Spotify playlist for as many of the songs we've been talking about as we could. Listen here.

The U.K. electronic music scene evolves faster than anything on this side of the Atlantic. Almost every summer a new sound materializes, then takes over London clubs before anyone can describe it. The past few years have birthed micro-genres like wonky, purple and future bass, not to mention the industry's latest crossover success, dubstep. Even the DJs making the music can't agree on what to call it, but those resigned to speaking in shorthand have settled on U.K. bass — because if there's one constant to the chaos, it's the low frequencies.

Glasgow producer Russell Whyte, a.k.a. Rustie, is one of those U.K. artists playing on the frontier of dance music. He's part of Glasgow collectives LuckyMe and Numbers (the latter released Jamie xx's first solo single earlier this year), and he's about to release one of the most anticipated electronic albums of 2011, Glass Swords, on Warp Records. It's full of heavy synths and unshakable hooks, most notably on the recently released single "All Night," which you can grab on Rustie's SoundCloud page.

We asked Rustie to round up the beats of Britain's turbulent summer and blend them into a mix for our Songs of the Summer series. He picked tracks from dubstep producer Joker, fellow LuckyMe DJs Hudson Mohawke and Jacques Green and, of course, some Glass Swords highlights that have snuck into live sets over the past few months.

If there's one song that both epitomizes the recent unrest in London and makes you want to move, it's Zed Bias' "Trouble in the Streets." The titular vocal hook shouts what we're all thinking about and the gradual build during the songs climax is everything you look for in a dancefloor banger.

Songs of the Summer: Rustie's Beats From Britain's Streets

1. Rustie, "Flash Back"
2. Krystal Klear, "Clove Dagger"
3. Jacques Greene, "I Like You"
4. Nightwave, "Festivus"
5. Zed Bias, "Trouble in the Streets" (feat. Mark Pritchard)
6. Mele, "Mugged"
7. Rustie, "Hover Traps"
8. Skream, "Where You Should Be" (Seiji Remix)
9. Hudson Mohawke, "Foxy Boxing"
10. Turboshinboy, "Sparks"
11. Rustie, "4eva"
12. Joker, "On My Mind" (Rustie Remix)
12. Rustie, "Ultra Thizz"
13. Machinedrum, "LoveKing" (Machinedrum Edit)
14. Harvey Kartel, "Say Yes"
15. Lone, "Crystal Caverns"
16. Hudson Mohawke, "Thank You"
17. Joker, "Trancey"
18. Kavsrave, "Your Love"
19. Preditah, "New York"
20. Rustie,"All Nite"

Enlarge René Mansi/iStockphoto

Music writers from New Orleans to New Jersey wrote about everyone from King Louie to William DeVaughn to Beyonce.

René Mansi/iStockphoto

Music writers from New Orleans to New Jersey wrote about everyone from King Louie to William DeVaughn to Beyonce.

This week on The Record, we're looking at some of the songs that captured our attention (or held us hostage) this summer, and asking what they tell us about our standards, our anxieties and the places we want our music to take us when it's hot out. We made a Spotify playlist for as many of the songs we've been talking about as we could. Listen here.

In the past week and a half we've asked a handful of music writers from across the country to tell us what's been their summer jam this year — a track they've found unavoidable or one they themselves have worn out, a song they listened to all summer long or one that soundtracked a single perfect summer moment.

Enlarge Christian Wheatley/iStockphoto

Musicians from San Francisco to Nashville picked songs by everyone from Erykah Badu to My Bloody Valentine.

Christian Wheatley/iStockphoto

Musicians from San Francisco to Nashville picked songs by everyone from Erykah Badu to My Bloody Valentine.

This week on The Record, we're looking at some of the songs that captured our attention (or held us hostage) this summer, and asking what they tell us about our standards, our anxieties and the places we want our music to take us when it's hot out. We made a Spotify playlist for as many of the songs we've been talking about as we could. Listen here.

In the past week and a half we've asked a handful of musicians from across the country to tell us what's been their summer jam this year — a track they've found unavoidable or one they themselves have worn out, a song they listened to all summer long or one that soundtracked a single perfect summer moment.

Enlarge Courtesy of the artist

Miguel.

Courtesy of the artist

Miguel.

This week on The Record, we're looking at some of the songs that captured our attention (or held us hostage) this summer, and asking what they tell us about our standards, our anxieties and the places we want our music to take us when it's hot out. We made a Spotify playlist for as many of the songs we've been talking about as we could. Listen here.

It took a few months for "Sure Thing," the second single from Miguel's All I Want Is You, to land on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop chart, but once it did it sat down and refused to budge. The song first charted the week before Valentine's Day and built steadily until May, after which it hasn't left the top three.

Not everybody listens to commercial radio anymore. I do. At the beach, in the car, on the roof, at work, in the kitchen, if I ever went to the gym. Most of the time it's Hot 97, because I live in New York. I listen enough that I have heard Funkmaster Flex slam the brakes on his show so he can publicly humiliate the intern who lost his bomb sound — twice. If you listen that much, other than Flex drama (and thank god for him), you're not going to be surprised very often.

But every once in a while something comes out of those speakers and catches you off guard. And since last fall, almost every single time it's happened to me, the song that's done it has been by Miguel. His bag of tricks shouldn't fool me: A turn of phrase I can't quite account for, an embarrassingly effective delayed resolution or a velvety reverb tied to a really dry snare. He's got the same recipe as everybody else, but he's tweaked it just enough to make his songs distinctive. They reward obsessive replay and excessive volume. The three singles out so far, "All I Want Is You," "Quickie" and "Sure Thing" each have their oddball charm, but "Sure Thing" has the summer sound, and it's the one that seems to be sticking.

Enlarge Mike Weinberg/flickr.com

Summer songs: best if played outside before September 21.

Mike Weinberg/flickr.com

Summer songs: best if played outside before September 21.

This week on The Record, we're looking at some of the songs that captured our attention (or held us hostage) this summer, and asking what they tell us about our standards, our anxieties and the places we want our music to take us when it's hot out. We made a Spotify playlist for as many of the songs we've been talking about as we could. Listen here.

Ann Powers spoke with David Greene on NPR's Morning Edition about summer songs — those tracks that, as she wrote last week, hit the perfect balance of fun cliches and light-hearted rhythm. They also often hit the top of the charts. But what do those summer songs do to draw us in?

On The Record we've written about three routes to summer song victory. There's writing an unavoidable pop hook, as LMFAO did with "Party Rock Anthem," and building the song as one would a flashy, souped-up convertible. Make the song unashamedly recognizable (Jacob calls it "dumb fun" that works when we have so much free time we're willing to fill it by playing a song with little redeeming value) and you'll have a hit any summer in the past decade.

There's another type of song that can take over playlists in the summer — one that's unexpectedly relevant. The unsettled tension of Foster The People's "Pumped Up Kicks" has matched with the confusing mood of the past few months — and it's not the first time. As Ann wrote last week, there's a surprising tradition of hit songs about murderous psychpaths, from Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska" to Sufjan Stevens' "John Wayne Gacy, Jr."

And then there's the sound of the summer: humid. Miguel's "Sure Thing" is all over urban radio, which makes sense, since it's the perfect song to catch without even trying on a sun-heated roof at the end of a long day. The track is layered up with harmonies and sonic embellishments (some sound like like crickets, others like voices through open windows) but Miguel's voicing is stretched out and sleepy. "Sure Thing" is of a piece with other minor key, slightly off-kilter slow jams from R&B singers like The Weeknd and Frank Ocean that dropped this spring and summer, but the saturated production pairs better with recent weather than those songs.

Still and all, a summer song is personal. It matters where you spent the past few months, with whom and what kind of memories got made. For the rest of the week we'll be posting the summer songs of musicians and music writers around the country and outside.

What have you been hearing this summer?

Enlarge Stephanie Ma/Universal Records

LMFAO (Redfoo on the left, SkyBlu on the right), so named because the response of SkyBlu's grandmother to their original name, Sexy Dudes, was, "LMFAO. Are you serious?"

Stephanie Ma/Universal Records

LMFAO (Redfoo on the left, SkyBlu on the right), so named because the response of SkyBlu's grandmother to their original name, Sexy Dudes, was, "LMFAO. Are you serious?"

This week on The Record, we're looking at some of the songs that captured our attention (or held us hostage) this summer, and asking what they tell us about our standards, our anxieties and the places we want our music to take us when it's hot out. We made a Spotify playlist for as many of the songs we've been talking about as we could. Listen here.

Ladies, gentlemen, party rockers: no disrespect to "Pumped Up Kicks," but the indisputable song of the summer for 2011 is LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem."

The Record

Songs Of The Summer: 'Pumped Up Kicks'

Summer is always a time to think about, and write about, pop music, not just to listen to it. But 2011 yielded an unusually bountiful crop of think pieces about what pop means now: there was the one that worried that pop doesn't mean as much as it used to; the one that said that it's impossible to know what pop even means; the one that set out to determine what it takes to be popular; there was that psychological study about narcissism made everybody scratch their heads a little bit; the one that argued that narcissism in pop isn't such a bad thing; there was a raft of responses to a book about our current obsession with all things "retro" and finally this week a piece by the author of said book that argues that our retro obsession neuters current music of the chance to make something great of itself.

But the dumb fun of a big hook and a silly dance trumps heavy thinking, and as quietly as a song anchored by a bleating siren can, "Party Rock Anthem" offered an antidote to nearly all of these anxieties.

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

All These Kids: Mark Foster of Foster the People onstage during the 2011 VH1 Do Something Awards on August 14, 2011 in Hollywood, California.

2011's songs of the summer were as schizophrenic as the season itself. Over the next few days on The Record, we'll look at some of the songs that captured our attention (or held us hostage) and ask what they tell us about our standards, our anxieties and the places we want our music to take us when it's hot out. We made a Spotify playlist for as many of the songs we've been talking about as we could. Listen here.

Some songs are predestined to rule the summer. Their creators strive for the perfect balance of relaxation-inducing clichés and fizzy novelty, wrapped up in rhythms so light-hearted they seem to run on the very air of abandon: We'll have fun, fun, fun going back to Cali, because today I don't feel like doing anything except walking on sunshine until we're party rockin' in the house tonight! No one can resist a song like this. Claiming you can is like saying you hate Popsicles.

Another kind of summer song has a more complicated relationship to the season. Instead of invoking an endless, idealized beach day, such a song resonates within a specific time and place. Not intentionally topical, such songs collide with current events in unexpected ways: a simmering bass line might reflect the oppressiveness of a heat wave, or a confrontational chorus could connect with kids forming a grassroots movement in the street.

Music Interviews

Foster The People: An Outsider Anthem, A Viral Hit

What if the moment's prevailing mood is hard to pin down — sometimes voluble, sometimes glum? I'd call that floating anxiety, the Red Bull-and-vodka delirium of a culture seriously in flux. That's what this summer feels like to me, with the tensions inspired by economic woes, political skirmishes, tragic accidents and true-crime sprees never quite alleviated by the distractions Kardashian weddings and Harry Potter finales provide. It's not a breezy, easy time, even when the weather's nice enough to put the top down.

"Pumped Up Kicks," by Foster the People, is the accidental anthem of this messed-up summer, because it's just as creepy as it is sweet. Comfortingly catchy but unsettled at its core, it's a beach drive with traffic, a weekend away with the cell phone continually going off.