Roséwave Returns: 101 Songs To Shade Your Summer Pink

Summer comes in shades of life: nightclubbing with besties, poolside with neighborhood children, backyard grilling, making out at parties, hitting the gym grind, hitting the work grind, quietly sobbing to Stevie Nicks-level heartbreak, living whatever version of your best life fills out the hot and sticky days of your hot and sticky mess of a life. It's a seasonal equalizer, the heat making our clothes a little brighter and easier to breathe in, and perhaps resetting our psyches to do the same. Every summer should have a soundtrack to mark this sweaty, sunscreen-soaked renewal.

Last summer, roséwave was that soundtrack. We didn't invent a genre; we just gave the lifestyle a name. We saw pink drinks come out in tones of rose quartz, cotton candy and deep carnation — a spectrum of pink, of flavor, of summer desire all wrapped in bottles and tallboys. Pair that with summery pop music of catholic taste — Top 40 jams sidled alongside featherweight disco, sweaty funk, hooky hip-hop, '80s synth pop and New Wave, glitzy country, power ballads, Balearic beats, jangly rock — and you can imagine spilling some rosé on the dance floor with friends, or watching its sweet and fruity nectar kiss summer lawns as you accidentally tip a glass in bliss.

And truly, roséwave took on a life all its own, as self-professed (and newly self-discovered) basics embraced its fluid musical gestures like they embraced rosé made from merlot, grenache, malbec and many varieties of grapes.

Guided by this year's patron saints of roséwave (Kacey Musgraves; J Balvin; both SZA and Dua Lipa by way of Calvin Harris' irresistibly sunny production), this summer's playlist encompasses four decades worth of bops (TLC's "No Scrubs," Whitney Houston's "How Will I Know"), bangers (Missy Elliot's "Work It," Maren Morris' "Rich") and jams (The B-52s' "Roam," The Psychedelic Furs' "Love My Way," Natalie Prass' "Short Court Style"). But it also includes plenty of wine-soaked cryfests, from Hundred Waters' "Particle" and The xx's "Angels" to Bon Jovi's "I'll Be There For You" and Stevie Nicks' epic duet with Tom Petty, "Stopping Draggin' My Heart Around."

This is just the beginning. Just as rosé comprises a spectrum of pink, roséwave contains multitudes — so this summer, we'll publish a new playlist every week centered on a different theme of the roséwave lifestyle. But for now, let these 101 songs soundtrack your summer of thinking pink.

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