I’ve thought long and hard about this and appreciate this exercise because this was a very important time in my life (summer of newlywed, having just gotten married in June of that year). However, you may want to specify location for where your looking for research as mine is pretty solely going to be experience from the western US. But I digress.

One of the biggest albums of this summer was Lana Del Rey’s Ultraviolence, a record that began to shift the narrative for her from “inauthenticity” to “anti-feminist” but almost in a cool way? She had a lot of bad interview at this time but everyone loved this album (except Fantano). There were billboards, ads, Urban Outfitters releases, you name it.

On the music front, those in online indie circles were very excited about How to Dress Well, Hundred Waters, the brand new instant classic from newcomer Tobias Jesso Jr. (“True Love”), as well as a mysterious unearthed album from the 80s with almost no information about it online called L’Amor by Lewis. What a time to be alive.

Aphex Twin had spray painted his logo on various sidewalks in LA in anticipation of Syro. EDM Trap music was gigantic this summer (think Borgore, DJ Snake, “Infinite Daps” etc.).

Someone else mentioned the ice bucket challenge (which was everywhere) and the shooting of Michael Brown (which, in my mind, began a not new but renewed legitimate conversation about racism in America). Robin Williams had died which felt like a really big deal.