Finally, it's here - the day when a very important question will be answered. Yes, the day when we find out what the "Jam of the Summer" is going to be. Meteorologists and other weather-obsessed folks have their Groundhog Day ritual with Punxsutawney Phil, but for those of us who love the jamz and live in Chapel Hill/Carrboro, there is "After Chill", the massive bumper-to-bumper cruising spectacle/traffic jam that holds it down on West Franklin Street for a good 4 to 6 hours after the end of the officially sanctioned (and much tamer) Apple Chill festival/streetfair. Perhaps I shouldn't use the Groundhog Day analogy, as there is not a single revelatory "Here is the Jam of the Summer" moment, and of course there is no official ceremony with the mayor or anything. But what there is is this: hundreds and hundreds of cars from all over North Carolina, cruising up and down the street at 1 MPH, car stereos blaring with blazin' hip-hop and R&B, most of it precisely chosen to win the approval or attention of fellow drivers and the hundreds of spectators on the side of the street. Now imagine how easy it would be for a single pedestrian to sample hundreds of 5-to-10-second jamz fragments and start forming a good picture of what song was going to be the hottest, flyest, most popular and inescapable jam of the summer. It's almost like a "Caucus of the Jamz", a bacchanalia-cum-focus-group.
This listen-to-Apple-Chill method chose the Jam of the Summer with stunning accuracy for three years straight, even when I foolishly questioned its choice at the end of the day. Its dead-on predictions from 2000-2002:
2000 - Jay-Z's "Big Pimpin'"
2001 - Missy Elliott - "Get UR Freak On"
2002 - Nelly - "Hot in Herre"
Last year I went much later than normal and only caught the 9:30pm after-dark contingent....traffic was still bumper-to-bumper, and perhaps the musical mood had changed. As I biked by car after car, the song that I heard the most was 50 Cent's dour "Many Men". Not exactly the jam of summer 2003....and yet the first half of 2003 was clearly 50's time, so perhaps this was just a ratification of that fact. I think my methodology (the bicycle factor, the late hour) was a little off last year and I'm hoping for much better results today. My personal predictions? Well, I don't want to wind up being the weatherman who screwed up and called for an early spring, but I'm betting on either Usher/Lil' Jon - "Yeah!" or maybe some undeniable jam that hasn't graced my ears just yet...
Posted by Tim at April 18, 2004 01:50 PM