July 19: "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People and "Second Chance" by Peter Bjorn and John

Today we have two toe-tappers to add to your summer playlist.

Foster the People's tune came out much earlier in the year and is getting serious airplay in the GSD area. If you like Wilco and MGMT, we think you'll find this tune entirely groovable. We don't quite know the name of the sound technique applied to Mark Foster's voice--the bad audio technique? the am radio technique?--but we like the grittiness it adds to this otherwise pop-ish, catchy tune.

The other must-download song is another one that made its debut at the beginning of 2011. Peter Bjorn and John's song comes out of the gate cranking and gets the feet a-thumping because of one simple but critical instrument: the cowbell. It's amazing that more artists do not rock the cowbell in songs. Perhaps Will Ferrell's SNL skit somehow made the cowbell cliche, but that's hard to believe given how the cowbell always seems to take a song to the next level. [note: The only downside to "Second Chance" is that Budweiser is now featuring the song in a Bud Light Lime commercial. It diminishes the originality of the song, but it does not take away from its upbeat energy and likable lyrics.]

Get these two songs onto the iPod now, and if they remind you of any other recent songs, please let us know in a comment.