Compile your own summer song CD
Spice up your patio parties with sensational soundtracks
By Heather Camlot
Let’s face it — Canadians have only two real months of summer, so when that warm weather comes around we take advantage of it. Backyard entertaining is a tradition. Along with cool drinks and hot burgers, you need some great tunes to keep the mood high. Create a sizzling soundtrack for your summer socials with the help of your computer and CD burner.
So, what makes for a great summer song? Well, the word summer or sun in the title helps, as does an artist strongly associated with the season, such as the Beach Boys or surfer dude Chris Isaak. For Karina Huber, a MuchMoreMusic host, a summer song has an exotic, adventurous sound to it.
“It’s hard to define a summer song,” she says. “It’s a song where you want to rip off your clothes, jump into the car, get the wind blowing in your hair — it has to inspire that in me.”
A summer song may have nothing to do with sun or surf, but for some personal reason reminds you of the season. While Huber was travelling in India, she came across a bar that was playing the Eagles’ Hotel California. “I was really homesick and it brought me back to summers at home.”
Choose warm weather tunes
To get your soundtrack started, here’s a selection of summer favourites, old and new:
- “Groovin’”: The Young Rascals
- “Soak Up the Sun”: Sheryl Crow
- “The Boys of Summer”: Don Henley
- “Summer in the City”: The Lovin’ Spoonful
- “Pacific Coast Party”: Smash Mouth
- “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay”: Otis Redding
- “Good Vibrations”: The Beach Boys
- “Good Day Sunshine”: The Beatles
- “Island in the Sun”: Weezer
- “Love Shack”: The B-52s
- “Rockaway Beach”: Ramones
- “No Woman No Cry”: Bob Marley
- “Fly”: Sugar Ray
- “Patio Lanterns”: Kim Mitchell
- “Summer of ’69”: Bryan Adams
Add your favourite tunes or compile songs for your audience or affair: laid-back grooves for an evening get-together or dinner party, upbeat tunes for an afternoon or lunch, or singalong songs for the kids.
Create your playlist
To load your songs onto your computer, pop a CD in your burner and select the Rip tab in Windows Media Player. Uncheck songs you don’t want; then click Rip Music.
You can also record a compilation CD using Windows Media Player or another CD-burning program. Create a new playlist by clicking the library tab > Create Playlist. Give your playlist a name; then start dragging songs from your music list on the left-hand side (make sure you drag the actual song and not the album title) to the right of your screen where it says Drag items here. Below the list, click Save Playlist.
To burn this list to CD, click the Burn tab and drag your playlist from the left-hand side to the Burn List on the right. Insert a blank CD in your CD burner and click Start Burn.
Jazz up your summer CD with funky labels
To give your CD a professional look, especially if you plan on handing out copies at your bash, you can create a customized CD label using Microsoft Home Magazine’s Summer CD Label Template and CD Insert Label Template, or browse a variety of CD label templates for Word and Publisher at Microsoft.ca. Save each file to your desktop, and open it with the appropriate program.
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Turn your computer into a jukebox
If you’ve compiled more songs than can fit onto a single CD, but you want to play the entire playlist while you entertain this summer, try opening your music in Windows Media Center (which comes with Vista Ultimate and Vista Home Premium). Select Media Only mode from the Tasks menu to display your music library full-screen while hiding access to your desktop. You or your guests can also delete or rearrange songs as desired by clicking View Queue > Edit Queue and clicking on the up and down arrows to the right of the songs in the list.
Hey, it’s summer! The living is easy — so is creating a sizzling, sun-drenched soundtrack.
All styling and inset photography by Julie Stoyka of Zariel Creative
