As far as we can tell, there are two types of good music. There’s the kind you listen to when it’s cold outside, and there’s the kind you listen to when it’s warm outside. Human nature being what it is, we’re prone to jumping the gun on such matters, so it stands to reason that we automatically break out a new stack of records in October — the first time there’s a chill in the air — and in May, the first time the sun hangs just low enough for us to confidently rock a short-sleeved shirt. Last fall, we brought you a list of our favorite autumnal music, and here, we give you a list of records and songs that are guaranteed to make your first barbecue of the spring everything it could be. Should you take our suggestions and find otherwise, let us know, and we’ll buy you a hot dog.*

Courtesy beck

Beck rocks the summer hits!

The Rock PicksBy Mike Conklin

Built To Spill‘Keep it Like a Secret’

With his totally 90s flannel shirts and, hands-down, the best beard in indie rock, the sight of Built to Spill frontman Doug Martsch does not exactly inspire visions of baseball and beer gardens. Give the man a guitar, though, and all that changes. The opening chord sequence in ‘Carry the Zero’ sounds like clouds parting and flowers blooming.

Billy Bragg and Wilco

There was a time not too long ago when Wilco wrote songs that regular people could enjoy, and ‘California Stars’ is the perfect example — even if the lyrics were written by Woodie Guthrie. Tweedy and company provided the perfect, airy backdrop for whimsical lyrics like, "I’d give this world to dream a dream with you on a bed of California stars." It lends itself as well to sitting on a porch drinking beer as it does to dancing, singing and, well, drinking beer.Beck

I don’t really like Beck. He’s got more style in his malnourished little pinky finger than I will ever have, and it wears on my nerves like you wouldn’t believe. So it should mean even more when I tell you that ‘Summer Girl’ will be the feel-good song of the season. Why? Because it’s better than ‘Hey Ya.’ Seriously. The, umm, err...

White People Covering Black People PicksBy Mark Asch

The Clash

Most middle-class white kids deal with their bourgeois guilt by complaining about gentrification even as they move from Wesleyan to Williamsburg for their summer internship at Sony’s Urban Music Department. Joe Strummer, on the other hand, covered a lot of reggae songs.Le Tigre

The ideal soundtrack to an impromptu dance party on your friend’s fire escape. Listening to Kathleen Hanna’s lead vocal is like popping open a bottle of champagne and watching the cork ricochet off the walls for the next three minutes and 49 seconds.

The MC5

Bubblegum pop drenched in rum and coke from a hidden flask that you snuck into the outdoor concert in the pocket of your jeans which you put on in the morning when it was chilly but now it’s blazingly hot and you didn’t bring a change of clothes and you’re sweaty and dehydrated (probably from the rum and coke) and you might pass out and the guys on stage are just screaming at you… Kick out the jams, motherfuckers.

* We can’t really buy you hot dogs. We don’t have any money. But if you’re really unhappy with our picks, send us an email and we’ll talk to you about a tailor-made playlist for your party.