@Joseph Rita

Whether it’s a weekday morning or Saturday night, get going with this personalized mix of upbeat music. Refreshed every Monday.

Songs to help you relax and unwind. Updated every Sunday.

Discover new music from artists we think you'll like. Refreshed every Friday.

Motown, The Beach Boys, fun novelties, and wistful ballads: So much of what we think of as great summer pop comes from the ’60s. Even as music took a revolutionary turn toward the end of the decade, it retained a sense of innocence that still evokes the feeling of the sun on your face and bare feet in the grass—after all, it wasn’t the Spring, Winter, or Fall of Love that defined the hippie era, but the Summer. Our editors mix things up here now and then, so if you hear something you like, add it to your library.

With their jangling guitars and arch lyrics, The Smiths defined the UK's indie sound for most of the ‘80s. The band's music was the product of two unique and inimitable talents. Johnny Marr's concision as a guitarist belied an encyclopedic knowledge of songcraft as he concocted some of the most memorable riffs of the decade. Morrissey proved to be one of the most witheringly funny lyricists in rock history, especially when he took aim at his own pretensions. Thanks to the devotion of their cult, The Smiths' immeasurable contributions to modern rock remain a subject of awe and inspiration.

As the '50s gave way to the ’60s, the cross-pollination of rock, pop, and R&B blossomed into a wave of outwardly cheery but emotionally layered girl groups who mastered a resilient wall of group vocals. Harmonizing through relatable tales of teen turmoil, young ensembles like The Shirelles and The Shangri-Las explored dark, sometimes sensual melodrama within the safe confines of snappy sing-alongs. That said, savvy writer/producers like Phil Spector seized on the marketability of this fresh sound to push out the boundaries of pop arrangements, sweeping humble handclaps and castanets into dense mini-symphonies. Though the sound enjoyed peak success for only a handful of years before the British Invasion, it yielded songs as primitive as The Dixie Cups’ “Iko Iko”—on which a schoolyard-style chant is accompanied by percussion performed on ashtrays and soft-drink bottles—and as polished as The Supremes’ “Baby Love,” a romantic lament couched in the upbeat trappings of lush, widescreen orchestration.

Whether it’s a weekday morning or Saturday night, get going with this personalized mix of upbeat music. Refreshed every Monday.