So as I pondered who should be the Week No. 4 winner in our “Song of Summer” sweepstakes, I found myself trying to choose between the song about partying and waking up with a tattoo (Hot Chelle Rae’s “Tonight Tonight”) or the song about partying and waking up with an arrest warrant (Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night [T.G.I.F.]”).

Eventually, I decided to go with the guy who was planning to “drink a little more than I should,” but gave no sign that he’d regret anything the next morning. And that’s how Pitbull’s “Give Me Everything” became our Summer Song Week #4 winner, and the first song to take two weeks since we began keeping score after Memorial Day.

You have undoubtedly noticed that the proliferation of current CHR hits that are either exhortations to party and/or about the party that went a little too well. Ke$ha’s “Blow” has just gone to recurrent, leaving behind Pitbull, Jennifer Lopez’s “On The Floor,” LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem,” Britney Spears’ “’Till The World Ends,” Jason Derulo’s “Don’t Wanna Go Home,” and Perry’s current hit, still in the top 10 or immediately below it.

By contrast, a decade ago, there were only two party-themed songs in the top 10: Nelly’s “Ride Wit Me” and Janet Jackson’s “All For You,” in which the party going on in the background was still decidedly second to the hookup that was taking place there. In the recently discussed summer of 1981, there were no party-themed songs in the top 10 this week; (which may be why Top 40 radio was so bad at the time).

THESE ARE THE GOOD TIMES?

What about the disco summer of ’79? There were plenty of songs that you could dance to, of course. But the only one in the top 10 at this point in June that was actually about partying was “Boogie Wonderland” by Earth, Wind & Fire & the Emotions. And that song, for anybody who's actually ever noticed the lyrics, is about trying to dance away the failure of the rest of your life. There was also the call to dance in Sister Sledge's “We Are Family,” but that song was more about what the title suggested.

Now, party rock is definitely in the house. And just like "Good Times," the pre-apocalyptic song to which people partied like it was 1979 a little later that summer, many of the current songs have their own element of desperation as in Britney Spears’ “’Till The World Ends” or Pitbull’s “we might not see tomorrow” pickup line,

It’s not hard to parse why there might be so many of these out right now: anybody who is poking their head up after nearly three years of economic bad times is looking to party; those still in search of “Good Times” are looking to party; the current chart is dominated by dance music, meaning that somebody will be encouraged to bum-rush the dance floor by a song lyric or two. And, of course, once one of these songs worked it was just inevitable there would be others. So raise your glass.

That said, you can only hope that none of this week’s high-school seniors will really feel like their graduation party was a bust if they’re actually able to remember it the next day. And some of the revelry feels a little forced to me. “Blow” obviously resonated with listeners, but it felt joyless to me in its minor-chord sonic aggression. Not since “Eye Of The Tiger” has a hit record been that uptempo without being any fun; (or so I felt, a lot of other people obviously enjoyed it).

MORE SUMMER SONGS

By mid-June, most of the summer song candidates have pretty much been pushed out there. Any other song that reaches critical mass by Labor Day will truly be the phenomenon of the season. But there’s one worth mentioning from Canada, where two years ago teen/punk act the Stereos broke through locally with “Summer Girl.” Last week, New Cities (one of many Canadian rivals in that category) made their bid with “Heatwave.” While it may be hard to beat “Tonight, Tonight” in the teen punk category, I feel strongly that somebody reading this column will want to hear the New Cities record, if only because it effectively samples Baltimora’s “Tarzan Boy.”

We also have a nominee for “love song of summer” from Hot AC WTSS (Star 102.5) Buffalo, N.Y., APD/MD/morning man Rob Lucas, who chimes in on behalf of Jason Aldean & Kelly Clarkson’s “Don’t You Wanna Stay.” That song was a cold-weather hit in Country (and on Top 40 Sirius XM Hits 1), but it’s now top 15 at Hot AC and getting ready to go after Top 40. Lucas predicts it will be “maybe the biggest multi-format hit of its type in a long time… I think somewhere Celine Dion is saying, ‘If that was me on there and not Kelly, I’d be on the charts again.’”

Read our week 3 wrap-up here, or leave your comment below.