Chicago pulses with vitality in the summer. The city’s inhabitants reemerge to shake off the spiritual malaise sedemented by an extended winter, yet the summer comes with its own difficulties. Workers are stuck in cubicles despite a beckoning sun, sticky humidity makes wearing anything more than swim trunks a total drag and crime escalates. Chicagoans walk a mental tightrope between appreciation and sweaty frustration, so we at the Weekend Edition have constructed a playlist that underscores the fluctuating mindset that comes from enjoying (or enduring) smoldering summer days:

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“Minotaur” – Thee Oh Sees, “Floating Coffin”

“Sun Blows Up Today” – The Flaming Lips, “The Terror”

“Electricity” – Spiritualized, “Ladies and Gentlemen We’re Floating in Space”

“Hold My Liquor” – Kanye West (ft. Chief Keef and Justin Vernon), “Yeezus”

“Believer” – John Maus, “We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves”

“Back to the Middle” – Deerhunter, “Monomania”

“Summertime” – Janis Joplin, “Cheap Thrills” 

“Summertime” – Girls, “Album”