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With summer finally starting, everyone (whether consciously or not) is searching for a few albums to be the anthem to their summer. We’re all searching for a set of songs to set the vibe for the next few months, an album that will guide our adventures and  act as a photo book when we listen to it in the future. Becoming a summer album is perhaps the most important status in which an album can reach, but with so many choices, which should you choose?

To aid you in your search, I decided to create a list of 5 albums, ranging through the decades, to help you find the perfect album in which to set you summer too.

5. Catch A Fire – Bob Marley & The Wailers (1973)

In what universe would a Bob Marley album not make it on a summer album list? Though Catch a Fire isn’t his greatest (See: Exodus) it does have perhaps the most summer of all summer vibes. Songs like “Concrete Jungle”, “Kinky Reggae” and “No More Trouble” may be the greatest songs to participate in illegal activities too (See: Catch a Fire album cover). Put this album in your stereo, or if you're lucky enough to own it on vinyl, spin it, and let the vibes take you over.

4. Together Through Life – Bob Dylan (2009)

Finally entering this decade, Dylan’s newest album throws down a vibe that’s perfect to sit back and drink a beer too. Though keeping with his usual folk vibe, he combines it with some Rhythm and Blues, and in doing so makes your head nod as you listen to it. Song’s like “Beyond Here Lies Nothing” and “It’s All Good” rock like only Dylan can. His voice is rash with age and cigarettes, but still matches perfectly with the music that his hand and him crafts. Plus, having been on a never-ending tour since the 1980’s, you may get a chance to see him play with Mellencamp and Willie Nelson at your local minor league ballpark this summer.

3. Black on Both Sides ­– Mos Def (1999)

For hip-hop fans, I’ll throw in one of the 1990’s greatest rap albums – Mos Def’s Black on Both Sides. It’s how hip-hop was designed to be – a chill beat with an MC spitting over it. There’s not a single auto-tune on this record. There’s still a damned DJ on this shit - it’s great. Check out “Hip Hop”, “Love” and “Mathematics” to feel what I'm saying. Pop this in your stereo and before long you’ll be in ultimate chill mode, give it a week and you’ll know all the lyrics.

2. In An Aeroplane Over the Sea – Neutral Milk Hotel (1998)

What some consider the most beautiful album ever written (like Jesse Lacey of Brand New, and well, me), In An Aeroplane Over the Sea contains everything one could ever hope to find in a summer album. With upbeat songs like “Holland, 1945” to jam out too, and songs like “Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2” to cry too – the album waxes and wanes like a true summer does. It’s happy, beautiful, sad, and meaningful – it’s everything. Every song on this album is virtually perfect, and is sung brilliantly by songwriter Jeff Magnum, whom has not released an album since (well, other than an album of Bulgarian Folk Music, but that doesn’t really count). I could talk about this album for hours on end (like how it was inspired by reoccurring dreams of a family during WWII, or how it may be the apex of indie music as a whole), but I’ll save that for later. Either way, this is a perfect album to set your summer to and you should take advantage of that immediately.

1. Violent Femmes – Violent Femmes (1982)

This album is perfect for the summer. Released in 1982, the majority of the songs were written by Gordon Gano while still in high school. The album created a new hybrid genre – in which they labeled “folk-punk” – and just happens to be both intense and chill at the same time, making it perfect to drive with your windows down to. Listen to songs like the now famous “Blister in the Sun” as well as “Kiss Off," “Please Do Not Go,” and “Add it Up” to understand what I’m saying.

There’s millions of albums out there, and thousands of them have the possibility to be your perfect summer album; but the above handful of albums are the cream of the crop. All you have to do is go to your local record store, pick them up, put them in your stereo and crank the volume - the rest of your summer will then follow suite.