Like snowflakes, no two people’s personal summer jam is alike. A summer jam could mean Fetty Wap’s surefire party-starter (you know the one) or Grouper’s isolated, gauze-wrapped ambience. We argue about them, crown them, use them as plot points on a graph to determine exactly how and when ass came back. So why not share ours? Here are six playlists to enhance your enjoyment of six very different kinds of summer. Now pass the mojito. — DAN WEISS
SPIN Party to Go, Vol. 1
Now a bygone relic of the CD era, MTV’s Party to Go series became something of a ’90s pop institution by offering listeners exactly what its title implies: A one-stop, hour-long mix of some of the period’s biggest and best party-starters. They weren’t terribly artful with their track selections, but their blends of dance, hip-hop, dancehall, and a whole lot of trashy pop remixes make them fascinating period pieces, from the New Jack Swing-heavy early installments through the TRL pop-stacked final issues. SPIN‘s inaugural Party to Go mix hopes to offer a similarly roof-raising timestamp for 2015, blending (t)rap hits by the likes of Fetty Wap and Rich Homie Quan with house crushers from Disclosure and Martin Garrix and dancehall-revival jams from Shaggy and (of course) OMI — interspersed with no shortage of pop remixes, natch. If your summer dance party neeeeds mo-tee-vay-shun, look no further. — ANDREW UNTERBERGER
Deadbeat Summer
It’s possible to live through a New York City summer without air conditioner, but I wouldn’t recommend it. We’ve had a pretty mild June, but already I’ve spent too many nights sweating in silence after being woken up by the squealing brakes of a passing B38. Times like these I need solitude and sleep, or I need something anxious enough to match my fragile, sticky state. So here’s a mix for a deadbeat summer, needly noise and austere ambient as both a palliative and mirror to the dreggy twilight hours. — COLIN JOYCE
Dancefloor Comedown
The expression “nuits sonores” runs deep. What appropriately translates to “sound nights” started out as a solely electronic music festival in France; it’s also the name of a ruminative Floating Points song, which finds its way onto this insistent but gently spun eight-track sequence of beats and minimal melodies. Especially during the summer months, the best dance music finds a way outdoors — to secret open-air warehouses and boat decks and dusty desert stages — moving formerly pale ravers’ sunburnt limbs and sun-streaked hair through the long, hot days and too-short nights. Just don’t forget to go home. — HARLEY BROWN
Workday Summertime Struts
Relaxing on a beach, day drinking on your favorite bar’s patio, reading a book in a park, getting down at a rooftop club — these are all ideal ways to spend the most fun season of the year. Unfortunately, most people can’t do them five days of the week, because you’ve got to go to that place with the desks and and the lousy coffee and the polite chitchat and whatnot. This electropop-leaning playlist should exude just the right amount of energy for your walk to work on a gorgeous Tuesday morning. — JAMES GREBEY
Casual Sax
It’s a still, slimy evening in August. You wind your way down a graveled city street. Thick, warm trills quaver out to accompany your stroll — behold; it’s the sound of casual sax. Though this, ahem, horny playlist encompasses ’80s cheese-pop (Huey Lewis & the News’ “I Want a New Drug”), sweat-soaked ’70s punk (X-Ray Spex’ “Oh Bondage! Up Yours!”), and left-leaning college-rock veterans (R.E.M.’s “Fireplace”), each cut has something vital in common: a touch (or in some cases, a blast) of rock’n’roll’s jazziest instrument. — RACHEL BRODSKY
Teenpop That Rocks + Vice Versa
Nothing screams S-U-M-M-E-R with a bunch of backup cheerleaders clapping quite like brat pop queens and their frosty-tipped counterparts donning their best leather jacketed poses on token axe-wielding tunes that are often the highlight (One Direction’s “Little Black Dress,” Ke$ha’s “Gold Trans Am”) of albums that should’ve gone full-on Blackhearts. But (former?) alt-rockers can play at this game too, with Tegan and Sara’s “Drove Me Wild” spraying Pixy Stix dust everywhere from t-shirt cannon synths and Weezer’s underrated, proto-EDM “Smart Girls” pounding away like the lunkheaded fauxminist anthem it believes it is. Weep with joy as Ashlee Simpson’s Timbaland moment is resurrected in the Lauper-sassed “Outta My Head (Ay Ya Ya)” and Bonnie McKee’s perfectly highway-tested “American Girl” is purged from 2013 one-off obscurity. All that’s missing is “Let’s Go to the Mall.” — DAN WEISS
