The Spare Bedroom

Endless Summer

Released: August 5, 2016, June 24, 2021 (5 Year Anniversary Edition)

1. Endless Summer
2. Sunset
3. Daytona
4. Jason
5. Synthetic
6. The Equaliser (Not Alone)
7. The Comeback Kid
8. Vampires
9. Crockett's Revenge
10. Nighthawks
11. Lonely City
12. Memories

Ahhhh, summer. The season of heat, sunshine, beaches, and memories. After hitting the scene with Days of Thunder, Tim McEwan and Tyler Lyle reached for the synthwave stars with the much more ambitious Endless Summer. In the synthwave world, palm trees, flamingoes, and said beaches are a focal point of imagery, and The Midnight leaned into the aesthetic heavily with their first album.

The liner note summarizes perfectly what they were aiming for:

The image of the perfect place - sun soaked and shining - the colors forever suspended in full bloom. This perfect place may not exist, but the longing for it does. In Brazil the word saudade means meta-nostalgia. Longing for a longing. The Endless Summer is the promise that it can stay this good forever. Maybe if we hold on tight enough the autumn won't come, love won't wither, we won't fade away. This album was written in Los Angeles and New York City with inspiration from Coney Island and Venice Beach and the Nighthawks in The East Village and the runaways headed for Hollywood and the Vampires haunting Midtown Manhattan. We see with fogged lenses. We remember through dirty glass, but we feel that impression of the sunset like an anchor on our heart - the colors over the Pacific as sharp as ever - even if we've never been to the ocean. Life has to change and continue on to the next season. Music can linger a bit.

The music did indeed linger for The Midnight, as Endless Summer quickly became a legendary album within the synthwave scene. If Days of Thunder was an introduction, Endless Summer was the full arrival of McEwan and Lyle as a duo, with many songs that remain synthwave staples today. The tile track sees Lyle reminscing about an "endless summer" that seemingly faded as quickly as it began, despite the memories forever lasting. There is a tinge of mystery conveyed with McEwan's fantastic production on the track, leaving the listener guessing what truly happened during those summer months.

After the dark and moody opener, the light switch is quickly flipped and so was born The Midnight's most famous song: Sunset. Inspired by a stay at a cheap hotel in Vermont, Sunset is The Midnight's magnum opus, a full dive into that escapist fantasy land full of palm trees and miles of beaches, a tale that reasonated with so many and continues to do so to this day.