School's Out!

Wait for it . . .Yes! It’s the last bell of the school year, the sweet sound of your release and the signal to start the first day of the rest of your life — at least until autumn comes back around. Allow us to pick up where the bell leaves off and provide you with your ultimate school’s-out soundtrack, the sonic companion that’s got your back when you power up the Ting Tings and tell the hall patrol to “Shut Up and Let Me Go,” before launching into the wild side of the season with Miley Cyrus’ “Can’t Be Tamed,” Chiddy Bang and the yeah-duh beats of “Opposite of Adults,” and Jay-Z’s goal-oriented “Young Forever (feat. Mr. Hudson).”

Vacation’s just getting started — trip into Next Steps to keep the good times goin’.

“The old me’s dead and gone,” sings Justin Timberlake on T.I.’s finally-free dance track “Dead and Gone,” and truth to tell, J.T. could be talkin’ your former life of indentured scholastic servitude. We know you spent those long hours every day staring at the clock in class, dreamin’ of the time when you could take off “Up Up & Away” just like Kid Cudi — and baby, the time is now! Go ahead and let the Pussycat Dolls worry about “When I Grow Up”; you and MGMT are “Kids” and a righteous summer vacay is practically your birthright.

Keep that sweet school’s-out feeling alive in Deep Cuts.

So, class is kaput and you’ve made like Gwen Stefani and broken through to “The Sweet Escape.” What’s up for the rest of the summer?! Well, we’ve got some ideas and they all include tunes to celebrate your seasonal release — from rockin’ out with the Ataris’ scorching “The Boys of Summer,” to kissin’ the sky to the solar-powered sounds of Smash Mouth’s “Walkin’ On the Sun,” to settin’ the moves loose to Justin Timberlake’s stone smash “Rock Your Body.” Fall may be lurking around the corner, but when you open up and sing along to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” you could almost be convinced that school will never start back up.

They’re two of the most beautiful words in the English language: school’s out. They mean you’re free, free to slip into your summer skin, give that classroom brain a bit of a break, and concentrate instead on the sweet, easy feeling of having a whole season at your command. We don’t want you to waste a second of it, so our School’s Out Essentials requires only one quick download to get all the tunes you need to complete the scene, from the beautiful dream of Matisyahu’s reggae-flavored “One Day,” to the tasty hip-hop rush of Flo Rida’s “Sugar (feat. Wynter),” to Taylor Swift’s country-pop ballad of one perfect memory in the making, “Today Was a Fairytale.” Natasha Bedingfield’s got a “Pocketful of Sunshine” and now that you’re on the loose and packin’ the tracks, you can keep your school’s-out sensations just as close.