Those lazy, hazy, crazy sounds of summer

Sun, sea, sand and sweaty festivals wouldn't be the same without the right soundtrack. Robert Webb selects the hottest holiday hits

We do love to be beside the seaside. Or at a festival. Or sitting in a queue of traffic, nudging up the aircon and wondering if anyone remembered to pack the phone charger. And our summers are invariably soundtracked by the latest radio hit, the club anthem, or sometimes just a random song that will, when the nights start drawing in and we swap flip-flops for long socks, remind us of what we did on our holidays.

Click on the image to launch our guide to the Sounds of Summer

"People take pictures of the summer/ Just in case someone thought they had missed it/ And to prove that it really existed," sang Ray Davies in 1968, in the Kinks' "People Take Pictures of Each Other", one of the best songs about capturing that memory of summer before it fades into autumn gold. Summer songs are as abundant and varied as pebbles on the beach. Most tend to come and go with the surf. Others – such as the irrepressibly chirpy "Summer Holiday", the Grease hit "Summer Nights", the Med favourite "Macarena" – seem to reappear year after year, wafting along the prom with a whiff of warm shellfish. But, never mind the cockles, we've gathered 30 pearls to celebrate the ultimate summer sound. Altogether now, "Summer's here and the time is right... "