I've never believed in the concept of one song being ordained Song of the Summer, as if every pop fan everywhere has spent the past three months carrying around the same mixtape or listening to the same playlist no matter who they are and where they're going. My summer and your summer? Two different things. But I believe in pop and I believe in underdogs and I believe in magic and I believe it's possible to hear almost anything you want in the two and a half minutes that constitute the most familiar version of "OLD TOWN ROAD," the very obvious Song of the Summer of 2019 (at least in the US; it's a very American song, a star-spangled frontier banner waving freely o'er our collective radio dial). I believe you can hear irony or sincerity, humor or wanderlust, the mall or the Wild West, hip-hop or country, a goof or a statement of purpose, a cosmic dream or a strange nightmare. And I believe, therefore, that maybe there were 50 different Songs of the Summer of 2019 and maybe they all happened to be the same song. As another summer season comes to an end, let's pay one final tribute, and give one final listen, to the horses and tractors and black boots and GUCCI cowboy hats and banjos and the 20-year-old gay black man and the 57-year-old white country curiosity turned pop patriarch, two denizens of different parts of the American South that aren't, in the end, all that different. May they keep riding long after—well, not after we've forgotten, because we'll never forget—but after we've moved on to other, newer pop and hip-hop and country pleasures, some of which will be as ephemeral as a bull ride and some of which will prove as timeless as an old dusty road... Meanwhile, away from the radar of the summer sun, RAPHAEL SAADIQ last week quietly released one of the year's best albums, JIMMY LEE, a soul-drenched and gospel-washed song cycle about addiction, full of emotional gut punches like this one featuring 30 voices that are all Saadiq... After 11 years, JASON BENTLEY signs off this morning as host of KCRW's MORNING BECOMES ECLECTIC, and as the influential NPR station's music director. KCRW staffers ANNE LITT, GARTH TRINIDAD, AARON BYRD and RAUL CAMPOS will share hosting duties for the rest of the year while the station continues its search for a replacement... It's FRIDAY (and the last week of eligibility for the 2020 GRAMMYS) and that means new music from TOOL, LANA DEL REY, BLACK BELT EAGLE SCOUT, SHERYL CROW, LIL TECCA, SIR, COMMON, EZRA FURMAN, PHARMAKON, TRISHA YEARWOOD, !!! (CHK CHK CHK), KANO, JOAN SHELLEY, NINA KEITH, YACHT, VELVET NEGRONI, NATASHA BEDINGFIELD, WHITNEY, PARANOID LONDON, BONNIE "PRINCE" BILLY/BRYCE DESSNER/EIGHTH BLACKBIRD, GROSS NET, CARTER TUTTI VOID, ASTRID S, the ALCHEMIST, the FUTUREHEADS, JESSE MALIN, BIG WRECK, JOELL ORTIZ, the GRASCALS, the CHUCK WAGON GANG, JAMES CARTER ORGAN TRIO, ELIANE ELIAS, VERONICA SWIFT, JUSTINE SKYE and AKON... RIP MARIO DAVIDOVSKY... Monday is Labor Day in the US. MusicREDEF will be back in your inbox Tuesday morning. Have a great weekend!