Last Day of Summer by Summer Walker
In early 2022, Summer Walker’s 2018 song “Karma” experienced a resurgence—albeit with a twist. The popularity of videos featuring pitch-shifted versions of songs had been steadily growing in the early 2020s, with dancers and influencers setting their clips to slowed-down and sped-up takes on old and new tracks. This digital take on playing a 33-RPM disc with a record player set at 45 (or even 78) shows how certain facets of enjoying recorded music—here, figuring out that a song’s appeal isn’t necessarily wedded to its tempo or a vocalist’s range—are constant no matter what format people are enjoying. The creator @whereisreese devised a dance to a speedier rendition of Walker’s tit-for-tat track, and its popularity exploded online throughout 2022, with old fans and new listeners engaging in widespread appreciation for the R&B singer-songwriter. Some intrepid listeners had the idea of soundtracking videos to other sped-up songs from her 2018 mixtape, <i>Last Day of Summer</i>, such as “Shame”, “Deep” and the Drake-assisted remix of “Girls Need Love”. That autumn, Walker took the sped-up trend into her own hands, re-releasing <i>Last Day</i> in fully sped-up form and becoming the first artist to give an entire release that kind of makeover. The vengeful lyrics and divine-retribution idea behind “Karma” get a particular jolt from its new version, with Walker’s pitch-shifted vocals sounding as if they’re emanating from a heaven-appointed agent of chaos. <i>Last Day</i> contained a smattering of tracks that were interlude-length, like the sun-dappled “Baby” and the exacting “BP”; while the sped-up versions are altered just enough to lose a little bit of length, their potency is more concentrated in these briefer forms. The sped-up version of <i>Last Day of Summer</i> is consistent with the rest of Walker’s catalogue, because no matter the pace at which her songs are delivered, her strong compositional skills and unblinking honesty shine brightly.
