´óÏó´«Ã½

You see, once upon a time there was a thing called the Massive Summer Stormer. They were invented along with boybands - whenever you happen to set that date to be - and are immensely important to the State Of Pop as a whole. There are some Massive Summer Stormers that are more successful than others; does anyone even actually remember Atomic Kitten covering 'The Tide Is High' by Blondie?

Meanwhile, 'Summertime' by the Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff epitomises the genre so masterfully that it virtually defines the whole thing, despite the kick-off quite possibly having predated that song by several decades. Yes, I really do think like this, please try not to be too alarmed and instead move quickly on to this lyrical snippet from the aforementioned song:

Now, aside from being eighty percent more exciting than Shakespeare, this dominates the first verse of 'Summertime' in order to issue the mission statement of What The Summertime Stormer Is About. It is about partying, of course, because that is The Law about summer songs, since the Beach Boys first wished that literally everyone was a Californian girl, and there are some basic laws which you can't argue with. Summer partying is different to winter partying, though - in summer it's too hot to move but you want to do it anyway, wearing very few clothes. Summer partying is sexy but it's not dangerous, it's cute and fun and it's laidback, because it mostly happens horizontally on the beach.

Not everyone can hit this one off - let us never forget 'Summertime Of Our Lives' by A1, which is essentially a car crash between 'Club Tropicana' and a brain meltdown - but sometimes a song comes along and you think 'yeah.' Nothing too exuberant cus that's not how summer tunes work, but it just flirts with you a bit, then persuades you to come out with it and before you know it there's a whole lot of hot partying going on. 'Clothes Off' is just such a song.

Based around Patrick Stump singing a deliberate mis-sample of Jermaine Stewart's 'We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off,' this reverses the original message of keeping your kit on until you know someone better and have played a bit of cerebral tennis - pre-tonsil hockey - and instead establishes what most right-thinking people with a passing interest in the male form might well agree with, if confronted with Gym Class lead singer, Travis McCoy, which is that we should all take our clothes off in order to party all night and have a good time.

"What is this," you say, "'Hair'?" Well, I wouldn't know personally but I don't think hippies were ever quite this catchy, however, it's good to see that Calvin Harris and Louis XIV's messages of universal love are spreading, as Travis informs us that basically any lady of any ethnicity and any musical or cultural background is fair game for a bit of charm. Hurray!

Unlike your average 50 Cent record, however, there's nothing even remotely creepy about the enthusiasm for 'naked peekaboo' here, instead it's more like the singer's found himself in some kind of heterosexual teenage boy paradise and is going to proceed to run around this fantasy with his tongue hanging out, yelping "egads, boobies!" and other thrilled exclamations you can't really hold against him because let's face it, bikinis are pretty awesome.

Nerdy and cocky as always, you get the feeling GCH (and particularly their singer) can't quite believe their luck: Hey, this really rocks - no guys, we're serious, this REALLY ROCKS. Oh my God look at me, mum, I'm on a record! is how they manage to carry off what could potentially have turned into lecherous creep song of the year and come out with me wanting to ruffle their hair and call them cute. Besides, the song's got freaking HANDCLAPS in, people - has any bad song ever had those?

The best thing about the song is that, despite the apparent encouragement to start horizontal tangoing with anyone in the nearest vicinity, there's something quite innocent about it that suggests it's just about trying to collect as many numbers, rather than venereal diseases, as possible. Maybe Travis is having ten hours of lusty rumpo with hundreds of ladies but not only does this really sound like a love song to his summer crush, underneath all the posturing, it is, as he jokes, clear that he's pretty much just there for good clean fun, albeit maybe a twenty first century redefinition of the borders of 'good clean fun.'

It's fun, it makes you want to dance and it'd make an awesome party tune to try and ineptly chat up someone you've been eyeing for the past three months: it might be delayed but the release of this in the UK is a clear signal that yes, finally, it is actually summer now.

And even if it's still raining by the time you read this, this song has got precisely the right amount of total fantasy about it to not only convince you it's cool when it's very blatantly not, but to take you away to somewhere hot and glamourous, with cheap drinks and beautiful people. If there's a sickening moral to the whole Massive Summer Stormer, then that's it. Now excuse me whilst I make another pina colada.

Download: Out now
CD Released: August 20th

(Hazel Robinson)