Has summer already come and gone?

At the start of every summer, as the world regains some… Has summer already come and gone?

At the start of every summer, as the world regains some color and flip-flops are once again an acceptable foot fashion choice, my pop culture radar grows warm and fuzzy, excited at the prospect of absorbing all of the annual summer entertainment staples — the summer movie blockbusters, awesome summer concerts at the Post-Gazette Pavilion and those eccentric summer television series that I never actually like.

And of course, above all, the summer anthem.

The summer anthem, also known as “The Song of the Summer,” is the song that becomes aggravatingly ingrained in the listener’s head and is a pop radio station staple well into September. It is almost always a pop song or some derivative of pop, like the club-banging rap song.

And it is one of my favorite items of pop culture to monitor while floating in a pool or driving fast with the windows down, screaming the lyrics — yes, I am that person on the road.

While mid-May has become the breeding ground for smash summer singles, my radar this year has been fairly mild, and it’s making me nervous. I can think of countless pop songs that lack any musical merit — but that I still adore — that were released during the past few months but already on the downward trek on the overplayed curve.

In the past few years, summer anthems have included Rihanna’s “Umbrella” (Ella, ella), Timbaland’s grammatically infuriating “The Way I Are,” Lil Wayne’s Blow Pop-supporting “Lollipop” and last year’s ode to bi-curiosity, Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl.”

These songs all conform to a danceable beat, with hooks that not even the most skilled fisherman could extract from the listener’s head. The words are attractive because they’re fun to sing, but they don’t bother with such pithy lyrical attributes such as insightfulness or wit.

“Lick, lick, lick, lick it like a lollipop,” — not quite Hemingway.

“I kissed a girl and I liked it. The taste of her cherry Chapstick,” — holy sentence fragment, Batman!

Still, every summer, the nation and I ingest these morsels of purely mindless entertainment and crank up the volumes on our stereos because, just like watermelon and crappy low-paying student jobs, they complete the season.

But this year, there have already been countless tracks that fit the Summer Anthem bill.Unfortunately, many of them are already on the their way out in the national pop consciousness, leaving a void.

Flo Rida’s “Right Round” sounded goofy enough to become an anthem, but people are already groaning at its repetitive “Dead or Alive” riff. Lady Gaga’s songs are still awesome, but surely there must be something that will explode in a more anthem-worthy fashion than her slowly hyped jams.

Britney’s giggle-inducing “If U Seek Amy” is pure pop escapism, but it didn’t catch on the way she probably hoped.

The pop song landscape has been barren so far, with a few exceptions. I’m starting to hear “Kiss Me Thru the Phone,” a new Soulja Boy masterpiece, more and more often, and the Black Eyed Peas certainly do not disappoint with “Boom Boom Pow” — the “chickens” Fergie describes as “jackin’ my style” are oddly intriguing.

Still, the recently leaked Madonna and Lil Wayne collaboration, “Revolver,” has my vote for the infectious jam of the summer. It combines the best hook I’ve heard in ages with Weezy’s trademark wheeze-rap — he sings, too! — and has lyrics promoting violence, sex, death and love in a way sure to draw just enough controversial media attention to craft it into a smash hit.

“My love’s a revolver. My sex is a killer. Do you want to die happy?” Lil Wayne growls on the chorus.

I’ll take it, please, played on repeat for months to come. And to all you other artists out there, step up your game. My love of awesomely bad summer anthems knows no limits.

Do you have any suggestions for your predicted summer jam? Email Kieran at [email protected].