Kid Rock's All Summer Long
So where does that leave us? With that opportunistic scoundrel Kid Rock, of course. Kid has never been anyone's first choice for rock star, in part because his act is based on ripping off so many other, better rock stars. But his All Summer Long is a lovable jalopy of a tune shamelessly mashing up the piano line from Warren Zevon's Werewolves of London and the chorus of Lynyrd Skynyrd's Sweet Home Alabama. It's cheating to put summer in the title, and Kid flaunts the rules even more by rap-singing about "smoking funny things" and "catching walleye from the dock" back in the glorious summer of 1989. His appeal to all possible demos couldn't be more transparent if he had Hillary Clinton and Flavor Flav on backup. Still, All Summer Long wears down your defenses with its goofy exuberance—not that you'll be listening to it on your iPod. Kid Rock doesn't have an agreement with Apple, so a karaoke version of All Summer Long credited to the anonymous Hit Masters has filled the vacuum and climbed to No. 5 on iTunes. How perfect is that? In a summer without a definitive song, we're content singing karaoke of karaoke.