Like it or not, the summer is pop music's season, and as the solstice approaches it's about time the siren song of cheap, three-minute thrills was calling us over to the open-top convertible and pushing Pimm's and lemonade into our outstretched hands. Although Live 8 will inevitably set the media agenda for music this summer, most of the artists performing at the centrepiece Hyde Park show couldn't be more out of tune with the season (through no fault of their own, I suppose). Coldplay, Keane and U2 are a wistful autumn at best, and grim winter at worst. Likewise, the singles chart at the moment, with its Crazy Frogs and lonely Akons, would seem to indicate that the sun hasn't entirely got its hat on in the pop world yet.

Until recently, I've been surviving on reheated leftovers from last year, but what leftovers: Jamelia's effervescent "Superstar"; Natasha Bedingfield's "These Words"; Outkast's "Hey Ya", which still plays almost everywhere almost all the time; and, most memorably of all, Kanye West's show-stopping, handclap-led account of his survival of a near-fatal car crash, "Through the Wire". (All of the songs mentioned in this week's column are available on iTunes and, given that they're pop songs, every other download service.)

Everyone has their own favourites for summer barbecues, picnics, festivals or general lazing about in the heat, and for me the Supremes' "Baby Love" covers any sun-kissed eventuality.

For 2005, though, there are diamante glimmers of light starting to show through, too. The newcomer Amerie's single "1 Thing" is all that a summer pop song should be: shimmery, sexy, boasting a 20:1 chorus-verse ratio, and liable to increase your desire to wear flip-flops. I've heard griping that Amerie's no more than a Beyonce clone - and she is - but people who care about that kind of thing don't deserve summer pop music. They deserve Keane, dusk at 4pm, and a 90 per cent chance of precipitation.

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