NPR Music - Summer’s simple pleasures: Roséwave

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

Roséwave is a feeling more than a singular sound or genre. It’s the kind of sweetness and sadness that underscores the long, languid days of summer.  Long drives with old friends, watching your kids at the pool, backyard barbecues while the sun slowly sets.  On this episode we share a mix of songs that offer the perfect soundtrack for your roséwave days and nights, from Linda Ronstadt’s “How Do I Make You” and Marvin Gaye’s “Ain’t That Peculiar,” to Katie Gavin’s “Aftertaste,” Waxahatchee’s “Much Ado About Nothing” and more.NPR Music’s Lars Gotrich and contributor Marissa Lorusso join host Robin Hilton.(00:00) Intro and “Summertime, Summertime” by The Jamies(01:57) Wednesday: "Elderberry Wine"(04:34) The Lijadu Sisters: "Come on Home"(07:35) Katie Gavin: "Aftertaste”(12:17) Marvin Gaye: "Ain't That Peculiar"(15:46) Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra: “Gayane Ballet Suite: Adagio”(17:02) Haku.: "Looking Through My Subtle Double Eyelids"(19:46) Labi Siffre: "My Song"(22:45) Azymuth: "Faça de Conta"(25:09) Waxahatchee: "Much Ado About Nothing"(27:35) Linda Ronstadt: "How Do I Make You"(30:29) Addison Rae: "Diet Pepsi," from 'Addison'(34:56) Amerie: "Why Don't We Fall in Love"Reviews help!  Leave us one on Apple or Spotify wherever you listen to podcasts. Questions, comments, suggestions or feedback of any kind always welcome: [e-mail]: A version of this episode originally ran in July 2025.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

This episode of all songs considered comes to you from the NPR Music podcast. It's summertime, summertime, Sum, Sam, Sam. And Lars Gottridge, Marissa Larissa Laruso, are back with some sweet summary jams to, well, I don't know. What does Rose Wave do for you? What does Brose Wave do for me? Marissa, do you want to take this? Oh my God, I was just about to say, Lars, you start. You are the founder of Rose Wave.

All right. There's a discussion in Slack about the band Haim. And our colleague, Otis Hart, said, oh, yeah, they're rosé core. And I said, no, I think the preferred nomenclature is rosé wave. And the idea was not to name a certain style of music, but a style of being, where it's just that summary feeling. It's a little easy, it's a little breezy, it's a lot of feeling. It's a lot of car they raid Jepson style emotion. but if it necessarily pop music, it can be kind of anything.

So it started this series of summer playlists. It's a good shorthand. Yeah. Rose-a, just rosé. It just says so much. So if people search for a rosé wave on our site, all one word, you will find literally hundreds of songs handpicked by y'all going back to 2017. That's right.

Actually, the song that we've been listening to here, Uh, summertime, summertime. The 1958 classic by the Jamie's. Kind of, kind of can't believe you never featured this on any of your practice. Yeah, it's, it feels a little too much like they're forcing me to have fun. Mandatory fun. Yeah. That's not what I'm looking for.

Well, uh, we should get to some of this new stuff that you brought. And these aren't all new songs necessarily, but Marissa, why don't you start us off with something that you brought? Hmm, what's the best place to start? I'm going to start with the song Elderberry Wine by the band Wednesday. I love this band so much. This is a band from North Carolina, and they are very proud to be from North Carolina. They have this very countryside to their music. And this song is from, I think, that side of the Wednesday discography. It is perhaps the most easy, breezy, warm, young love kind of song on the rest. And this song on the rest of the song. And the rest of the song. It is perhaps the most easy, So that all feels very Rose Wave canon to me. Sweet song is a long call, I drove you to the airport we heard that voice in a long time, had to check back there to make sure Angel versus toward me sometimes a report complete. It's so long just fine because the champagne tastes.

I really love this song and, you know, we, We were talking, Lars, about how evocative the word rosé wave is. Like, you instantly know what you're going to get. Right. And this isn't what I assume when I hear the word rosé wave, Marissa. Oh, really? I don't know. For me, there's just something that's so, like, the ideal way to listen to that song

is driving in a car with your friends with all the windows down. And a glass of wine. Well, okay. Okay, so maybe you have one designated driver and everyone else has enjoyed some rosé and you're, you know, driving in the car. I don't know. That feels very rosé wave in spirit to me. Well, I guess what I'm thinking is that when I hear rosé wave, I just assume like nothing but pop bangers or bops, you know,

just like you're saying it's a much more complicated vibe than that. It's a feeling. It's a certain kind of sweetness. It's a certain kind of sadness, too, a little bit too. It's like allowing yourself to being in the emotion at the moment that you're having it. And so hanging out with your friends in a car. What a vibe. What a great vibe. What a great vibe. And that leads me right into the next song I want to play, which was also a vibe.

I was at a community pool with some friends and their kids. And kids were splashing in the pool. There were teens who were not trying to look too cool, but playing volleyball. But they were still kind of looking cool. And there was some nice shade from the trees. And it was just like a nice day. And then all of a sudden, this song comes on, and my friend Jess says to me, this is the perfect song for right now.

And I was a song by the La Jadu Sisters called Come On Home. This came on a jukebox or something at the pool? I think somebody made a playlist. This is great. I mean, if you were at the pool where I grew up and someone put a song on the jukebox, it was probably the Doobie Brothers. Oh, Kings are froze I wave. You know, or, oh, I can't believe I'm blanking on their name.

They did that song Elvira. I remember hearing all the time. Elvira, giddy up, balloon, ba-loon, bao-bo-bo-ba. No one? No one? No one. No one? No one.

No one. Oh, was it the Oak Ridge Boys? But this is great. I love this song. These are twin sisters from Nigeria who are making music in the 60s and 70s. And they are very popular in Nigeria. and their story is fascinating because they wanted to make music. They loved the Afrobeat that was happening at the time in Nigeria.

They loved the funk music that was happening in America. And they loved folk music that was happening in America. But in Nigeria, in this time in particular, women weren't really allowed to do this kind of thing to have music careers. So in addition to just making great little funky bops, they're also like this feminist message. And all of their songs kind of have this like funky, fokey and joyous beat. So is it La Dajadu?

Le Jadu Sisters, come on home. So that's from a 1979 album called Horizon Unlimited. Great, great record. I can't recommend enough. So I'm just here for The Hang. I don't really, I just want to hear what you guys are bringing. And so, and we've got a lot of stuff we want to play. So Marissa, let's go back to you.

So Lilith Fair. Are you guys familiar with Lilith Fair? Are you kidding me? Okay. Well, I went through a major, major Lilith Fair phase. Well, back when that was really pop up, back in the 90s. And, yeah, no, it was, like, if you get out my CD Logic notebooks, they're full of all the albums from that time, Jewel. Okay, well, I have honestly been talking to people my age and a little bit younger lately who,

have never heard of Lilith Fair. Don't know that this festival, this all-woman lineup existed. Don't know that it was so enormously successful. I've gotten a handful of TikToks in my TikTok feed from young women being like, can you believe that they made this music festival with like, you know, Cheryl Crow and like Indigo Girls and it was women and people went. Anyway, all of that to say that there was an album called What a Relief by Katie Gavin. And she is perhaps best known as the front woman of the band, Muna. But, What a Relief was her solo album, and she described it in all of the interviews that she did around the album as being Lilith Faircore, which I think is so great and so extraordinarily Rose Wave at its core. So anyway, the song that I would like to play by Katie Gavin is called Aftertaste. I think it is extremely breezy sitting by the pool with your girlie's gossiping kind of vibe, which has Rosea Wave written all over it. got long your hair got cut you wear the same old sweater it's good to see you we're catching up we're

talking about the weather and I'm the empress in my new clothes and I think that you must know and you're taking pity on me pretending you don't see I feel they're Yeah, I gotta be honest, the vibe you're channeling in your picks, Marissa, I'm there for it. This is, this feels like summer to me because everything's just a little, a little wistful, just a hint of melancholy, you know, it's like there's a weight to all of it in a way. It's not too breezy. Yeah, Robin, I was going to ask, what's your relationship to rosé? I mean, I think it, well, I was going to say I think it must taste like sewer water, but if I'm being, honest.

Oh, my God. We're about to, here we go. Let's do it. Lars is uncapping a bottle of rosé as we speak. Marissa, where are we talking to you from right now? I am in my closet in Brooklyn, New York.

Well, I'm sorry you can't be here. I was going to say that if I'm being honest, I don't think I've actually ever had rosé, just because everything about, I mean, all right, let me just say that anything described as light, bright, and refreshing. I mean, that's just not what I'm for when I'm reaching for a bottle of wine. I want something dark and leathery and Woodsy to go with the night, which is the space that I like to inhabit. But you brought it here and I have a coffee mug, so we'll just get some nice audio. There we go.

Okay. Oh. Oh, God. How do you do it? This is admittedly the cheap one that I just got from the grocery store around the corner. Lars, can you give us some tasting notes? We've got some, I would say, grapefruit. It's very tart. It's so sweet. So I've said this before on the show. I most recently was talking with Stephen Thompson about this because he really, really loves Moona.

And I've kind of missed the Moona boat, but I like Katie Gavin's solo stuff more. I don't know, it's got a little more character or warmth to it. Yeah, it's real loose. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think that makes sense, Robin, because most of Muna's biggest hits are so, like, get on the dance floor and cry. And this, I don't know, if you are a Lilith Fair attendee, this is right in your lane, I feel like.

So all the songs, Lars and Marissa that you picked over the years for a rosé wave, they're scattered across a bunch of different playlists or subcategories. These are pretty great. Single and sauced. Swipe right in 30 songs. Yeah. Shout out to Sydney Madden. That one was amazing. Brilliant. Here's another one.

Sippin and sprinting. Sipping and sprinting. A playlist for running drunk, I guess. No. All right. Here's something I want to make perfectly clear. Yes, when we started Rose Wave, Rose A was a part of it.

But over the years, my understanding and a way that I approach Rose Wave has nothing to do with beverages at all. It's just something that makes you feel good. But, you know. Well, I have run drunk. And I don't recommend it. I would go back when I was used to run, I used to run like about 50 miles a week.

And I would go to a happy hour after work or something, right? Sure. And then I'd come home and go for a run and I'd be half in the bag. Wow. It was a good way to burn it off. Anyway, there are a lot more different playlists here. But my personal favorite that you all did is, Can You Dig It? 25 golden jams from a 1969 vintage. Vintage.

Lauren Onkey. Oh, did she do that one? She did that one. So, you know, as I said, I was just here for The Hang, but when I saw the 1969 playlist, I thought, okay, if it's going to be that kind of party, I can play something here. Okay, please. about you every chance you get you seem to hurt me more

it makes my love stronger than before I know flowers It's got a nice shimmy to it Oh my God That's what you need Anything anything Anything from Marvin Gay works

So if we're thinking about Memories of Summer When Summer was great I did used to really enjoy it When I was growing up I would go for these long bike rides in high school, and the Walkman was a fairly new invention at that point.

I know, I'm dating myself. But it meant that I could ride around on my bike and listen to music for the first time ever. Oh, man. Yeah, it was incredible. I cannot tell you what a novelty that was and how special that was. And I had this playlist I made,

and it was full of Marvin Gaye stuff. You mean a mixtape? It was a mixtape. It actually was, in fact, an actual mixtape on cassette. You'd see, I've been conditioned now to say playlist. It was an actual cassette, and I remember I had like inner city blues was on it. And I try to remember what else was on that playlist. And I remember Queens, somebody to love.

I had Rolling Stones. You can't always get what you want. That was always my end of summer song. It was the last thing I'd listen to before school started again. That's a great tradition. Yeah. And then I had Guyana's Adagio by Kachachaturian. Okay.

Do you know that piece? I'm not familiar. Let's see. This is how it goes. It's most, was famously used in 2001 of Space Odyssey. This is playing, if you know, the film when he's running. He's running, yeah. Okay, I thought, okay, I can see it, yeah.

It's when he's jogging around the circle. And I don't know why I put this on my mix tape, but I have many memories of listening to this as the sun's going down, and I'm on my bike speeding down the country roads of Kansas. Well, you know, a large part of Rose Wave is actually sadness and being willing to be vulnerable about your sadness? Okay. Oh, absolutely.

I feel like there's an emotional range to Rose Wave. It's not just about fun in the sun because, you know, summer can be full of heartbreak and hardship, and you need a soundtrack for that, too. So there is this band from Japan called Haku, and they had this viral TikTok of them doing Japanese tongue twister, so it was absolutely delightful, and I fell in love with the band as a result. and they put out an EP at the very beginning of the year. It is one of those indie pop songs that's very swoony but sad at the same time, which is exactly my speed.

And the song title is Looking Through My Subtle Double Eyelids. Yeah, the translation that I read, It's like she's looking in the mirror and she is describing her features as a young Japanese woman. But at the same time, she is wondering about her love life. She's wondering about the future. She is very much in her feelings. And here we got this little peppy indie pop song to kind of get her through it. This is the first time I've heard this song and I am obsessed.

I'm so glad you brought it, Lars. Yeah, I think this is one you don't really need to know. need to know what she's saying, maybe. So the top comment on YouTube, understanding, 0%. Feeling 100%. Cute. 100,000%. That is exactly it, yes.

And I think it's only on video. I don't find it anywhere. They have an EP that came out earlier this year. Oh, okay. It's just a few songs. They had an album come out a couple years ago. I'm obsessed with them. I desperately need them to come to the U.S.

I think I'm also going to go slightly wistful here, and I'm going to play a song by Labby Sifery called My Song. Are you guys familiar with this? No, this is a new one to me. Oh my gosh. Okay. So it's from this album that honestly gets played in my house a lot called Crying, Laughing, Loving, Lying. The title track is really good, too. I almost picked that song.

But everything about this song to me is like so sweet. His voice is so sweet. The lyrics are so sweet. It makes me think about a way that you defined Rose Wave many, many years ago, Lars, which is like, you know, if you're at like a backyard barbecue and a bunch of your extended family is there, this is music that you could put on and like no one would be offended by it. Yeah. And obviously, inoffensive is not like a huge compliment to music, but I genuinely mean like anyone I think could hear the song and fall in love with it. Critics are saying it's not offensive. No, but I really do mean it in a genuine compliment sort of way.

This is my song and no one can take it away. It's been so long, but now you're here, here to stay. And I wonder if you know. what it means to find your dreams come true. Marissa, this is so nice. It's so great. Love it. Love the piano. His voice is incredible.

And there's a chance that someone might hear this song and not be familiar with him but think that the song sounds familiar and that is probably because it was sampled by the artist, formerly known as Kanye West, on his song, I Wonder. I think I probably heard that Kanye song, before I heard this record and recognized it immediately. An amazing other story that I heard about Labi Sifery is that another song of his was sampled by Eminem, and I read that when Eminem was trying to get the sample clearance,

Labi Sifery asked him to take out all the homophobia from the song before he would clear the sample, which is so awesome. And an incredible, I wish that could be a metric for all sample clearance of all time. But yeah, I love this record so much. It's called Crying, Laughing, Loving, Lying. He has a lot of really wonderful albums, but that's one that I'm the most familiar with. Well, that's really beautiful.

The song, again, called My Song, from 1972. I'm going to keep it in the 70s, and I'm going to say this out loud because I was thinking about it today and specifically in a reference to this song, I need to make a friend with somebody who has a boat. This has been a goal of mine for many years, It doesn't matter if it's on the ocean or on a river or on a lake.

All right. So anyone out there listening right now, email us all songs at npr.org. This sounds pretty serious. Yeah, it really is. So I think the point we're trying to make here is we need a boat. And you will hear this song on it. In 1975 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This is a trio called Azamuth.

They mixed funk and jazz and samba. And it was all very cosmic. And they have this great song called Faso de Jakuta. Marissa, you can't see it, but I have like a little smooth stank face. Of course, I'm picturing it. smooth, stank face. Yeah, it's kind of like, you know what, there's a really great bass line

and the bass guy is making a bass face, but it's like sometimes they're kind of ugly. This one's like, it's smooth. It's like, hmm. Let's see. So that's Azamuth, A-Z-Y-M-U-T-H from a self-titled album came out again in 1975.

That's a great pick. So I think you each have a couple more tracks you want to play. And Marissa, we're back to you. So I'm a longtime fan of Katie Crutchfield, aka Waxahatchee. She put out a record in 2020 called St. Cloud, which was this huge step up in terms of her songwriting, in terms of production, in terms of embracing this like Americana sound. And I think that marked the moment where Katie Crutchfield became a patron saint of Rose Wave. Do you think that's true, Lars?

Yes, absolutely. So ever since that record came out, I feel like there's a tons of things I could pay. pick to be on this year's Rose Wave playlist to make it into the canon. But I'm going to go with much ado about nothing. So this didn't look my way. You stare directly in my eyes because you are bright in circles talking yourself. And I said it you do about nothing. So this didn't come out on the original release of Tiger's Blood, right? That came out? Yeah, the deluxe version. They make a

deluxe version every six weeks now. Right, yeah. Okay, and a thought just occurred to me as well, which is that Tiger's Blood, her last record, is named after a snow cone flavor, and I'm like, snow cones, that is so rosé wave. Oh, 1,000%! Yes. I really used to

love getting snow cones. The real, like the faker, the better, right? Like, fake just giant pieces of ice. Oh, and not, and the crunchy kind too, not the shaved, fluffy stuff that just sort of dissolves in your mouth when you. You need the crunchy, like... So the stuff that ruins your teeth. Yeah, exactly, a little piece.

But, I mean, it's all ground up. It's little pieces. And all the syrup would pool at the bottom of the cone. Oh, my God, yeah. Yeah. And then you end up drinking the last... I have so many memories of, like, riding my bike through my neighborhood as a kid just to go to the snow cone place with my little brother. and it's just being like the best thing in the world.

Well, that's a great pick. Much you do about nothing. Lars, let's go back to you. I like to think of this next artist is sort of like a precursor to Katie Crutchfield and Waxahatchee. So Linda Ronstadt is one of my favorite singers of all time. And the hallmark of her artistry

is that she was always willing to try new things. She was a soft rocker. She sang ballads. She did Mexican folk songs. She did show tunes. She did opera. She's done a little bit of everything. And that to me is sort of like a nice little tenant of Rose Wave, trying new things and willing to be vulnerable.

And in 1980, she, after a decade of making soft rock and kind of like folky rock songs, she decided to put out a new wave record. It is such a fun record that nobody talks about anymore. And in particular, I love this song called How Do I Make You? I do remember when this came out, and it was weird at the time because, yeah, I mean, I was thinking of, like, Blue Bayou or something like that from her. Sure. That's what we would hear at the pool, and this came out, and I remember thinking, like, this sounds like Pat Benatar, because Pat Benatar had just had, I think, I think, I think, think her first record, maybe the year before, something like that. And Blondie was in the air. Blondie was totally in the air. And like she worked with like a person who knew how to write

these kinds of songs. His name Billy Steinberg. He wrote like a virgin. Oh, okay. He wrote Eternal Flame by the Bengals. Oh, wow. So like she knows she knows who to work with. It's so fun. I can't recommend. This is a great first song. The lyric is how do I make you dream about me? Which, Oh, my God. What a rose-wife sentiment. Oh, my, it's like the peak of desire, but doing it in a very cute way. It sounds a little stalkery, though. Well, I know how much you love Linda Ronstadt.

And I actually, when I was trying to think, if it's anything that I could possibly contribute, I actually considered a couple Linda Ronstadt cuts, but I wouldn't have thought of this one. So great pick. Both of you still have one more song that you want to play. And Marissa, I think what you've been, saving the best for last?

I've certainly been saving something. Well, I was just trying. I'm not saying I personally think it's the best. Earlier in our conversation, you said that you felt like Rose Wave, you expected like pure pop. And so I had to bring some of that to the show for sure. And so I would like to discuss the song Diet Pepsi by Addison Ray. My poison winner, he loves the game.

My lips reflect off his cross-cold chain. He's telling me, but in these ripped blue chains, my cheeks are red like cherries in the spring. But he's a work of all you to die to touch. Is she the real deal? Because I've been getting some poser vibes. Is she the real deal? That's such a fascinating question, Robin.

And I do think that she comes from a tradition of pop girlies that would say, what is real, you know? What does that mean to be a real deal of pop star? I do think she worked... What is a poser now? What even is a poser? I do think that she comes very much from, you know, the Lana Del Rey lineage, who is a person who's very interested in, you know, authenticity, for sure.

But then also she really comes from the Britney Spears lineage, which is, you know, kind of pinnacle of, quote-unquote, manufactured pop star. And I think she has a little bit of Madonna in here, who in there, which, you know, that's another person who would question the real. About a month or so ago, I actually sent a voice memo to Marissa and to Lindsay McKenna, are my co-creators and Rose Wave. It was a hot day. I was walking home from work from the Metro.

And I was listening to the Addison Array record because a lot of people who I respect liked it. Yeah. And I was like, all right, fine. I'll listen to it. And it wasn't clicking for me. It all felt a little anonymous. It was really hot out, so I ducked into the bodega that's just down the street from where I live, and I got a cherry Coke icy.

I'm on the edge of my seat here, Lars. And just as I was sipping my cherry Coke icing, Diapepi by Addison Ray came on, and you thought, I'm going to have Diap Pepsi instead. It's working. Yeah. And then something clicked for me because the original intent of Rose Way, was always about simple pleasures and not having to think too hard about it. And that was when this song did click for me.

Well, I guess Diet Pepsi feels like an appropriate name to me because it's artificially sweetened and a largely empty experience. Okay. As a lover of Diet soda for better or worse, I'm going to push back on that and say artificially sweetened, but feels amazing. Not compared to the real thing. I will say that the first time I heard the song Diet Pepsi, I was like, what is going on here?

It did not land for me. But yeah, my love of Diet soda did give me a generous heart towards the song. And I think after repeat listens, yeah, I think that that puts it in the Rose Wave Canon for sure. Sometimes you just don't have to think too hard about it. Yeah, that's fair. Well, there's obviously a whole lot more music that we could play here. Lars, I think you're going to do a playlist, yeah, where people can find. full versions of these songs and a bunch more.

And a bunch, it's going to be from any era, from any style of music, from all over the world. I love making this as international and global and as fun as possible. So what? That'll be in Spotify and Apple. I'm going to put it in as many streaming services as I possibly can. I love being inclusive with Rose Wave. All right. So you've got one more song that you want to take us out on. So, A. Marie is sort of like the Mariah Carey of summertime, because Mariah Carey owns Christmas.

Right, right? Of course, we all know this, yes. My queen. But A. Marie owns summer mostly based on the song, Why Don't We Fall in Love. It's a song from 2002 is from her debut album, All I Have. And the thing that I love about why we don't fall in love is that it captures the desperation and sweetness around a song. summer love, uh, like it actually like has like a nice rhythm to it that makes you want to walk down a street on a hot summer day, hand in hand with your boo and eating, eating your snow cone, eating your snow cone, drinking your rose coffee, your iced tea, what have you. And everything feels good and new and fresh. All right, we'll go out on this. The Lars Gottrich Marissa Laruso, uh, a grateful nation. Thanks you.

It was my pleasure to be here, Robin. Thank you so much. Robin just took another sip of his Roseanne. He's making a face. It's actually, it's a little like champagne. It's a little champagne. It's like without the bubbles. And for In Pure Music, I'm Robin Hilton.

It's all songs considered.