Pool Party

It just says summer — the welcome tingle of cool water on sun-baked skin, the tantalizing fragrance of the barbecue as it sizzles away, the bracing taste of a cold one as it slides down your throat, and the sound of laughter bubbling up from all your best buds. A great pool party is the season at its best, but it would be all wet without the right tunes, so press play on our Pool Party Essentials — a playlist with everything from hip-hop classics ("California Love" from 2Pac featuring Dr. Dre & Roger Troutman), to steamy dance tracks (Nelly's "Hot In Herre") to rainy-day musical umbrellas (Natasha Bedingfield and "Pocketful of Sunshine").

Keep the pool party swimmin', in Next Steps.

R&B godfather Stevie Wonder may be the master of mixing laid-back island cool with hotter-than-July style on "Master Blaster (Jammin')," but that doesn't mean you can't be an expert too. None of your pool party guests needs to know that you didn't do the legwork when it came to blending Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince's hip-pop hip-swiveler "Summertime" with the bright guitar punch of "California Sun" from punk pioneers the Ramones. And when the sun-soaked bounce of Sublime's "What I Got" flows like warm suntan oil into the slippity-slide beats of Coolio's "Fantastic Voyage," we're only too happy to hang loose in the deep end and let you take the credit.

Make the pool party last all summer long, with Deep Cuts.

The spirit of pool parties past meets up with the aquatic wing-dings of the day as '80s ladies the Go-Go's take a new wave "Vacation" and here-and-now pop queen Kelly Clarkson sings her heart out on "My Life Would Suck Without You." Kool & The Gang make with some vintage "Summer Madness" as 21st-century Dancehall master Sean Paul turns up the heat on the deck-side dance party with a Jamaican-flavored "Temperature." And rap trailblazers the Sugarhill Gang look back to summer in the city on "Rapper's Delight," while Lupe Fiasco dives into an up-to-the-minute hip-hop happening on "Superstar (feat. Matthew Santos)."

Cannonball!!! Hey, we're all about making a splash when it comes to your pool party, so we've brought together the sounds of the season into one long-playing soundtrack to your own wet-and-wild bash. It all kicks off with the endless-summer sounds of the Beach Boys and "Good Vibrations" before water-winging it through everything from the Brazilian-plus beats of "Mas Que Nada (feat. the Black Eyed Peas)" by Sergio Mendes, to Kiss' classic-rock party promise "Rock 'n Roll All Nite," to Zac Brown Band's Southern-style sunscreen warning "Chicken Fried." There's enough music here to make it last all summer and then some — when the nights turn cold and the leaves begin to fall, you'll still have Sheryl Crow's good-time command "Soak Up the Sun," and the eternal rock optimism of U2's "Beautiful Day" to remind you that the next pool party is already on its way.