Please do not be alarmed, but approaching quite rapidly, in fact, is your first summer Friday. While we can’t help you find pool friends for the season, or sort out a summer romance, we do aim to be of service – in dealing with beach-body anxiety, for one, and getting the gear you need for the season, obviously. If there is one other thing we might suggest, though, it is a single, mega playlist that you can just put on your system and forget about for a while. Here are a few tracks we absolutely recommend you drop in there.

• “Late Night Feelings” by Mr Mark Ronson

The hit-maker, Oscar winner and MR PORTER cover star does heartache very well. This, the song of the season (featuring the wonderful Ms Lykke Li), is one for when that holiday romance doesn’t quite pan out as planned.

• “Bet” by Tinashe (featuring Mr Devonté Hynes)

It’s not too early in the season to be this sultry and jazzy, is it? No. This is an engine start for the night and the summer.

• “Needed Me” by Rihanna

Before she was the most talked-about fashion designer and beauty mogul in the game, Ms Robyn Rihanna Fenty was a singer, believe it or not. This salty-ass jam is her doing the legend-and-a-curse-unto-all-mankind thing better than ever.

• “Sweet Thang” by Mr Shuggie Otis

Not that we want to miss out on any of the T-Rex arms dances around the barbecue grill in the middle of an afternoon. This is sweet, sweet romance and sunshine in a song.

• “I Dare You” by the xx

Just a perfect, summer rosé of a song, and a nice gear-shifter. Then, again, I was a part of making the video directed by Mr Alaisdar McLellan, with the cast in all CALVIN KLEIN 205W39NYC by Mr Raf Simons, so maybe I’m biased.

• “2080” by Yeasayer

Summer is also about anthems, about songs that can summon us to euphoria. This great one by Yeasayer is a call of the wild, and a nice snack as we wait for their new album to drop next month.

• “Doin’ Time” by Ms Lana Del Rey

Who can even tell what layer of irony lasagne we have reached here with Ms Del Ray covering punk band Sublime? Anyway, it is wonderful.

• “Collard Greens” by Schoolboy Q (featuring Mr Kendrick Lamar)

Speaking of new albums, the great Schoolboy Q just dropped a new one, which is all the reason we need to get deep into his heavy, hazy major-label debut album Oxymoron and the icky “Collard Greens” with fellow Angeleno Mr Lamar.

• “Humble Mumble” by OutKast (featuring Ms Erykah Badu)

This is peak OutKast, which is probably to say peak music, full stop. Bonus points for being one of the only songs to feature co-parents André 3000 and Ms Badu on the same track.

• “About Today” by The National

Parting is such sweet sorrow, but the boys from The National (who released a new album earlier this month) make it sound so graceful.