Deciding on the perfect soundtrack as you take a picturesque walk around campus to your first class is a difficult yet necessary feat, but this summer produced a multitude of incredible options to make this choice much easier.

While projects like singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers’s “Surrender” and international superstar Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” are undoubtedly summer hits, they can also be essential components of your fall playlist. Play these and more standout summer albums into the upcoming semester as you await anticipated fall music projects.

Renaissance – Beyoncé
Beyoncé’s highly anticipated ballroom-inspired record “RENAISSANCE” featuring lead single “BREAK MY SOUL” is not only representative of summer 2022, but the resurgence of house music into pop culture as a whole.

Standout upbeat club-inspired tracks “CUFF IT,” “ALIEN SUPERSTAR” and “PURE/HONEY” are sure to enhance your fall playlist and amplify an otherwise mundane walk to class this week. As a bonus treat for her fans on an already jam-packed 16 song tracklist, Beyoncé released an eclectic and campy version of “BREAK MY SOUL” known as “THE QUEENS REMIX,” mashing up her popular lead single with pop music legend Madonna’s iconic 1990 hit “Vogue.”

Surrender – Maggie Rogers
Maryland native Maggie Rogers was one of the first 11 people to receive a Master of Religion and Public Life degree from the Harvard Divinity School this year. Despite her impressive academic credentials, her Harvard education is not the only of Rogers’ accomplishments this year – her second studio album and follow-up to her Grammy-nominated record “Heard it in a Past Life” released this summer, with the same title as her Harvard thesis, “Surrender.”

On lead singles “That’s Where I Am” and “Want Want,” Rogers simultaneously explores feelings of comfortable love and intense lust, with memorable lines like “Boulders turn into sand/Wherever you go, that’s where I am” and “Might die if you can’t live just to taste it.” In “Anywhere With You,” Rogers unpacks themes of spirituality and religion in a way that relates to pop culture and performance, writing, “I’m praying to the headlights like I prayed to you/Before I found you.” It is clear that Rogers’ divinity degree inspired her sophomore effort, perhaps the catalyst in topping an acclaimed album that would otherwise be a difficult act to follow.

emails i can’t send – Sabrina Carpenter
Former “Girl Meets World” star Sabrina Carpenter may have found herself caught in the center of some very public drama last year, but don’t let that sway your decision to listen to her groundbreaking record “emails i can’t send” as you head into the fall. In fact, the body of work might just provide you with yet another perspective on the infamous Disney love triangle. The album’s standout track “because i liked a boy” has generated the most significant praise, albeit controversy. On the track, Carpenter sings, “Fell so deeply into it/It was all so innocent/Now I’m a homewrecker, I’m a slut/I got death threats filling up semi trucks/Tell me who I am, guess I don’t have a choice/All because I liked a boy” in reference to the public shaming following her relationship with “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” star Joshua Bassett.

She goes on to say, “And all of this for what?/When everything went down we’d already broken up,” alluding to the fact that she and Bassett were no longer an item by the time his ex Olivia Rodrigo’s breakup album “SOUR” was released. No matter where you stand on the controversy, Carpenter’s perspective is a must-listen. She and Rodrigo are both undoubtedly talented artists, no matter the adversarial divide between them in the eyes of the public.

MUNA – MUNA
MUNA’s 2021 collaboration with Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers on “Silk Chiffon” catapulted the three-member indie band into stardom, but it was their run as an opening act for Album of the Year winner Kacey Musgraves’s “Star-Crossed: Unveiled Tour” followed by their June 2022 release of their self-titled album “MUNA” that solidified their place as an essential Gen Z band.

Aside from “Silk Chiffon,” included on the self-titled album, standout tracks include “Anything But Me,” a cheeky breakup anthem that seems to pay homage to Musgraves’s hit single “High Horse” with the opening lines “You’re gonna say that I’m on a high horse/I think that my horse is regular-sized/Did you ever think maybe you’re on a pony/Going in circles on a carousel ride?” and country-inspired ballad “Kind of Girl,” where lead singer and co-producer Katie Gavin outlines her optimistic worldview and commentary on womanhood, singing “I’m the kind of girl who owns up to all of my faults/Who’s learning to laugh at ‘em all/Like I’m not a problem to solve/I’m a girl who’s blowing on a dandelion/Thinking how the winds could change at any given time.”