The Ataris' Boys of Summer

Ingenuously updating a 1980s radio staple for the post-grunge era, punk revivalists The Ataris in 2003 did successfully reinvent Don Henley's ageless "The Boys of Summer" as an angst-ridden anthem designed to convey the frustrations of a disenfranchised, and by-then mature Generation X still shell-shocked from the social and cultural upheavals of the 1990s. The Ataris' take on this piece of adult-contemporary history is a decidedly different one from Henley's version, casting it in a more immediate, aggressive mould, a distinctly different proposition from the laidback, pathos-filled demeanour of the original. The abnd also made a slight alteration in a key referential phrase in the third verse of the song to better reflect Generation X's cultural values, as opposed to Henley's baby boomer allusions. Check out the kaleidoscopic, knowingly assertive video clip.