Jimi Hendrix, ‘Long Hot Summer Night’ vs. Billy Idol, ‘Hot in the City': Greatest Summer Song Battle

Jimi Hendrix's "Long Hot Summer Night" is in a heated battle with Billy Idol's "Hot in the City" in the first round of our Greatest Summer Song battle – and your votes determine the winner.

We’ve selected 32 of classic rock’s best summertime songs, and paired them off in 16 first-round duels. Over the next five weeks the field will be repeatedly cut in half by your votes, until we arrive at the greatest summer song of all time.

On the one hand, there's Hendrix's "Long Hot Summer Night," which arrived as part of 1968's Electric Ladyland, the final studio project from the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The legendary studio perfectionist was already branching out, playing bass, as well as his usual guitar and vocal duties, on "Long Hot Summer Night." Meanwhile, Al Kooper of Blood Sweat and Tears and Bob Dylan's band, is featured on piano.

Then there's Idol's "Hot in the City," a song so popular that it charted twice: as his first-ever Top 25 hit when it was released as the lead single off 1982's self-titled debut album, and then again as a No. 13 U.K. single when it was re-released in 1987. (Even so, our editor thinks "All Summer Single," from 1986's Whiplash Smile, should be here instead.)

You can vote once per hour in each of the 16 first-round Greatest Summer Song battles until voting closes on July 27 at 11:59PM ET. Your choice for the Greatest Summer Song of all time will be revealed on Aug. 25, 2015.

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