LMFAO

Credit: Jose Cuervo

As we head into the Labor Day weekend, it’s time to officially crown the Song of Summer.

Summer songs are important. They become the aural memory of a time gone by. They have their greatest impact when we’re still in school because they often instantly recall the glorious summer break between school grades and can transport us back to what seems like a more carefree time. Think about them and you can practically smell the suntan lotion.

Some years the winner has been obvious, such as last year with Katy Perry’s “California Gurls,” other years there is no clear contender, but candidates are usually uniformly update and sunny as a summer’s day and are omnipresent on the car radio or iPod.

This year’s top pop contenders are LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem” featuring Lauren Bennett & GoonRock, Pitbull’s “Give Me Everything” featuring Ne-Yo, Afrojack and Nayer, Foster the People’s “Pumped Up Kicks,” Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F),” Nicki Minaj’s “Super Bass,”  and Adele’s “Rolling In the Deep.”  (I came up with this list with the help of Billboard’s charts and my own time spent listening).

Billboard has been keeping track of the potential winner all summer long and will reveal its final selection on Sept. 8, but it looks as if “Party Rock Anthem” has enough of a commanding lead for us to go ahead and declare the goofy tune the winner.

That idea is seconded by radio guru Sean Ross, whose Radio-Info.com survey of radio programmers handily awarded the title to LMFAO as well.

"It gets right to the point of what a summer song should be. It appeals to a wide audience. It’s got the wedding/bar mitzvah stamp of approval that “I Gotta Feeling” had," says Radio-Info contributor Rich Appel told Ross.

If you feel like relieving summers past or prepping the perfect Labor Day BBQ mixtape, click on Billboard’s Songs of the Summer (1985-2010) for a fun trip down memory lane.

What is your Song of Summer 2011?