Does a summer album have to be fast-paced, sunny and loud? Sure, these may be characteristics of the summer itself, depending on where you live, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that these have to be characteristics of good summer music. Of course, there are plenty of times when all you want in the summer is to be pumped-up and party and to be moving at 100 mph. But, there are certainly other times when you would just as soon slow things to a near standstill as the temperature nears 100 degrees.

Wild Nothing – Summer Holiday

Sometimes summer is all but a blur; a hazy, lo-fi, dream-pop break from the norm that is over far too quickly.  Which begs the question, why not slow things down? Album releases are often correlated to the season in which they are released, yet sometimes the doing the opposite can have a greater effect. For example, when Delorean’s Subiza came out this April some may have thought it was too soon given the album’s sunny, summery, Balearic feel. However, the timing was actually ideal, as it captured perfectly the intense anticipation of the summer, and the monumental build-up to the real thing. Had it been released in say July, it may not have had the profound impact that it did.

Another example of this is Wild Nothing’s new album Gemini, equally beautiful and more elegant than Subiza, it is the opposite in terms of pacing and build-up as it seems to slow time down to allow you to fully enjoy it’s wonderful sound. The album may be too slow-paced for the winter months when all you can dream of is sunshine and fun, but that remains to be seen, and for now it’s the perfect album to make summer last just a touch longer.

Other examples of the setting being important to music can be general mood. It isn’t easy to listen to a sad song if you’re actually sad, you’d much rather hear something more upbeat and positive. It is often the opposite emotion that carries the most weight.

So, just how important is timing to an album’s release? I would argue that it is vital, and therefore, taking everything into account, that Subiza and Gemini are the two best albums of the first half of 2010 due as much to the music itself as to the timing of their release.

What do you think? What is the best album of 2010 so far? How important is the timing of an album release?