"Summer Girls" is the title of a song recorded by the pop group LFO. It was released in June 1999 as the lead single from their album, LFO

LFO (album)

LFO was an album released by the American pop group Lyte Funky Ones. It was released on August 24, 1999 under Arista Records. It has sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide and over 3 million singles.-Track listing:...

. The song reached the Top 30 in the US in July 1999 and peaked at number three in August 1999.

Background and content

The song was written by Rich Cronin

Rich Cronin

Richard Burton "Rich" Cronin was an American singer and songwriter. He was the lead singer and primary songwriter for the pop group Lyte Funkie Ones or LFO.-Early life:...

, Dow Brain, and Brad Young. Cronin said that the song included numerous inside jokes, and that he never anticipated its success. He claimed this was because the song was made strictly for a demo tape, but was leaked to WWZZ, a top 40 radio station

Radio station

Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...

 in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

. PD Dale O'Brien at the radio staton got an unmixed copy of the song from Kelly Schweinsberg, GM of LFO's initial label, Logic Records. He listened to it a few days later, his "jaw dropped, and the song was added in a hot second." Many of the song's rhyming lines appear to be randomly inserted. It is considered the most popular song by the boy band.

"Summer Girls" is often identified by one of the lines in the chorus

Refrain

A refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the "chorus" of a song...

: "I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch" and "You look like a girl from Abercrombie and Fitch." The song was also featured in the movie Longshot

Longshot (film)

Longshot: The Movie , originally titled Jack Of All Trades is a teen film directed by Lionel C. Martin. It opened briefly in select theaters in Germany. The film was not shown in theaters in North America, but rather was released as a video and DVD only available through the film's web site...

, in which LFO appeared.

The song has myriad of primarily 1980's and early 1990s cultural references, including: Cherry Coke, Home Alone

Home Alone

Home Alone is a 1990 American Christmas comedy film written and produced by John Hughes and directed by Chris Columbus. The film stars Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McCallister, an eight-year-old boy, who is mistakenly left behind when his family flies to Paris for their Christmas vacation...

, Macaulay Culkin

Macaulay Culkin

Macaulay Carson Culkin is an American actor. He became widely known for his portrayal of Kevin McCallister in Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. He is also known for his roles in Richie Rich, Uncle Buck, My Girl, The Pagemaster, and Party Monster...

, Alex P. Keaton

Alex P. Keaton

Alex P. Keaton is a fictional character on the American television sitcom, Family Ties, which aired on NBC for seven seasons, from 1982 to 1989. Family Ties reflected the move in the United States away from the cultural liberalism of the 1960s and 1970s to the conservatism of the 1980s...

, New Edition

New Edition

New Edition is an R&B group formed in Boston in 1978. The group reached its height of popularity during the 1980s. They were the progenitors of the boy band movement of the 1980s and 1990s and led the way for groups like New Kids on the Block, Boyz II Men, Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync...

, Footloose, New Kids on the Block

New Kids on the Block

New Kids on the Block are an American boy band from Boston, Massachusetts, assembled in 1984 by producer Maurice Starr. The band currently consists of brothers Jordan and Jonathan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, and Danny Wood.New Kids on the Block enjoyed success in the late 1980s and...

, Beastie Boys

Beastie Boys

Beastie Boys are an American hip hop trio from New York City. The group consists of Mike D who plays the drums, MCA who plays the bass, and Ad-Rock who plays the guitar....

, Larry Bird

Larry Bird

Larry Joe Bird is a former American NBA basketball player and coach. Drafted into the NBA sixth overall by the Boston Celtics in 1978, Bird started at small forward and power forward for thirteen seasons, spearheading one of the NBA's most formidable frontcourts that included center Robert Parish...

, William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

, Abercrombie and Fitch, Michael J Fox, Cherry Pez

PEZ

Pez is the brand name of an Austrian confectionery and the mechanical pocket dispensers for the same...

, "Paul Revere

Paul Revere (song)

"Paul Revere" is a song by American hip hop group Beastie Boys, released as the third single from their debut album Licensed to Ill. It was written by Adam Horovitz, Joseph Simmons, Darryl McDaniels, and Rick Rubin. It was produced by Rick Rubin and the Beastie Boys...

", Kevin Bacon

Kevin Bacon

Kevin Norwood Bacon is an American film and theater actor whose notable roles include Animal House, Diner, Footloose, Flatliners, Wild Things, A Few Good Men, JFK, Apollo 13, Mystic River, The Woodsman, Trapped, Friday the 13th, Hollow Man, Tremors, Death Sentence, Frost/Nixon, Crazy, Stupid, Love....

, Mr. Limpet

The Incredible Mr. Limpet

The Incredible Mr. Limpet is a 1964 American live-action/animated film from Warner Bros. It is about a man named Henry Limpet who turns into a talking fish resembling a tilefish and helps the U.S. Navy locate and destroy Nazi submarines. Don Knotts plays the title character. The live action was...

, Chinese Food, pogo stick

Pogo stick

A pogo stick is a device for jumping off the ground in a standing position with the aid of a spring, used as a toy or exercise equipment. It consists of a pole with a handle at the top and footrests near the bottom, and a spring located somewhere along the pole...

s, Candy Girl

Candy Girl (New Edition song)

"Candy Girl" is an R&B song by boy band New Edition. Released in 1983, it was the first single from their debut album of the same name. It hit number one in the United Kingdom in May 1983, becoming the 31st best selling single of the year there.-History:...

, The Color Purple

The Color Purple

The Color Purple is an acclaimed 1982 epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker. It received the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction...

 and Fun Dip

Fun Dip

Fun Dip is a candy manufactured by The Willy Wonka Candy Company, a brand owned by Nestlé. The candy has been on the market in the United States and Canada since April 1942, and was originally called Lik-M-Aid. It was originally manufactured by Sunline, Inc, through their Sunmark Brands division,...

.

In popular culture

Rapper Eminem

Eminem

Marshall Bruce Mathers III , better known by his stage name Eminem or his alter ego Slim Shady, is an American rapper, record producer, songwriter and actor. Eminem's popularity brought his group project, D12, to mainstream recognition...

 parodied the song's chorus

Refrain

A refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the "chorus" of a song...

 in his track, "Marshall Mathers", from his 2000 album The Marshall Mathers LP

The Marshall Mathers LP

The Marshall Mathers LP is the third studio album by American rapper Eminem. Released May 23, 2000, the album sold more than 1.76 million copies in its first week just in the US. In 2001, the album won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album and was nominated for Album of the Year...

.

"Summer Girls" was certified Platinum by RIAA and reached the number-one position on the Billboard Hot Single Sales in 1999. In 2010 Billboard magazine named it the number sixteenth biggest summer song of all-time. However, Matthew Wilkening of AOL Radio

AOL Radio

AOL Radio powered by Slacker, , is an online radio service available only in the United States.- Roots :...

 ranked the song at #53 on the list of the 100 Worst Songs Ever, stating that "Stream-of-consciousness writing might be better off left to slightly deeper thinkers."

Track listing

US single

1. "Summer Girls" – 4:17
2. "Summer Girls" (instrumental) – 4:17
3. "Can't Have You" – 4:02

European single

1. "Summer Girls" – 4:17
2. "Summer Girls" (instrumental) – 4:17
3. "Summer Girls" (video) – 4:17

Peak positions

Chart (1999)	Peak position
Canadian Singles Chart Canadian Singles Chart The Canadian Singles Chart is currently compiled by the U.S.-based music sales tracking company, Nielsen SoundScan . The chart is compiled every Wednesday, and is published by Jam! Canoe on Thursdays....	18
New Zealand Singles Chart	14
Netherlands Singles Chart	79
Swedish Singles Chart	36
UK Singles Chart UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...	16
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...	3

End of year charts

End of year chart (1999)	Position
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	38