Is this the most underappreciated summer song of the century? (Yes)

It’s finally here: the cricket’s on the telly, the prawns are sizzling on the barbie, a trickle of sweat drips down the back of your neck, your Dad’s just texted you to say, “Gunna be a scorcher today!” It’s summertime, baby!

Every summer needs a soundtrack. Nay, an anthem. That song. That contagious, maddeningly catchy earworm that dominates the airwaves for those beautiful warm months between Halloween (October 31) and International Rare Disease Day (February 28). The backing track to your beach days, parties, barbeques and road trips. Unavoidable, inescapable, so popular and omnipresent you’d hear it if you lived in a yurt in Siberia.

The song of the summer. Upbeat, fun, easy. A song that gets you moving, no matter where you are, singing along without even realising it. But not all songs of summer are created equal. They can be good (Teenage Dream by Katy Perry, As It Was by Harry Styles), bad (Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO, Hotline Bling by Drake) and yeesh, ugly (Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke, Last Night by Morgan Wallen). Sometimes they’re sexy (Hips Don’t Lie by Shakira), and sometimes they’re straight-up bizarre (Old Town Road by Lil Nas X).

And, of course, they can be wildly underappreciated. After all, there can be only one. Allow me to transport you to a decade ago, the heady summer of 2015. Malcolm Turnbull had just become PM after knifing Tony Abbott (remember when Australian politics was basically Game of Thrones?), Michelle Payne became the first woman to win the Melbourne Cup, and people flocked to air-conditioned cinemas to watch Minions and escape the record-breaking heatwave. On the radio, music’s biggest hitmakers jostled for position in a crowded field: What Do You Mean? by Justin Bieber, Lean On by Major Lazer, Can’t Feel My Face by The Weeknd, Shut Up and Dance by Walk The Moon. But none of them could canter past that year’s ultimate song of the summer: Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk.

And somewhere in the maelstrom, gasping for air, clawing its way to the top for the briefest of moments before being pushed back down by a ruthless and unapologetic Bruno, was one of the best summer songs of the century: Sugar by Robin Schulz, feat. Francesco Yates.

You know it, you’ve heard it, even if the tune hasn’t sprung immediately to mind: “You’ve got me lifted, drifted higher than the ceiling/Oh, baby, it’s the ultimate feeling… Sugar, how you get so fly?” Oh yes, it was buried in your subconscious, and now it’s bouncing around in your head like the DVD logo screensaver. You’re welcome.

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It did have a moment – Sugar peaked briefly at No.3 on the Australian charts and went to No.1 in a few European countries. But it climbed to only No.21 in the UK and No.44 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and has left little cultural footprint despite having amassed 1 billion streams since its release a decade ago.

Schulz never ascended to the heights of his fellow European DJs – the likes of Avicii, David Guetta and Swedish House Mafia, all of whom headlined major festivals worldwide and became household names in EDM. But Sugar is just as delicious and addictive as anything in the repertoires of his over-lauded contemporaries.

It ticks all the boxes for a perfect summer tune. It’s euphoric. A dancehall banger of the highest order, flawlessly built for maximum groove, but never so intense as to overwhelm. Incredibly fun, and super-catchy, but not cloying, infuriating or deeply problematic (hello again, Blurred Lines).

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It’s accessible and fresh, simple but magnetic, robotic yet endearingly human. The clever and intoxicating Daft Punk-esque hook manages the delicate balancing act of sounding cool and interesting while also being unapologetically engineered for pop ubiquity. It’s bright, sunny pop perfection, a Zooper Dooper on a hot day distilled into delirious electronica.

Sugar is as welcome in a nightclub as it would be in a dentist’s office. Whether you’re bopping your head at the supermarket, cutting a rug at a wedding or enjoying a Sunday beer as the muso at your local tries to give it an acoustic touch, there’s nowhere Sugar won’t make your day just that bit sweeter.

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