light", praising its major-minor shifts and describing the sound effects as "particularly inventive" while "mercifully" not being overdone. Musician Chris Stamey describes the song as a "fantastic, cinematic record" and highlights the same features as Unterberger, particularly the major-minor changes which help emphasize the two different musical moods. In The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, Paul Evans also commends the sound effects and key signature changes, writing the latter retains both "a sense of wonder and deliberate naiveté". In the judgment of author Paul Simpson, "Summer in the City" is the song for which the Lovin' Spoonful are best known, and author Robert Santelli describes it as the band's "most potent" song, its "forceful, aggressive" format more representative of rock than the band's traditional folk rock style. Authors Keith and Kent Zimmerman call it "a twentieth-century pop classic", comparing it to Gershwin's An American in Paris and Richard Rodgers' Slaughter on Tenth Avenue. Author Arnold Shaw describes the use of effects as skillful and anticipatory of those heard on the Beatles' 1967 album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, while author James E. Perone describes them as an example of audio vérité, concluding the song remains "one of the most iconic songs of summer of the sound-recording era in the United States." In 2014, Billboard ranked the song at in a list of the top 30 summer songs, and in 2011, Rolling Stone placed it at on the magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Appearance in media and other versions "Summer in the City" served as the main theme of German filmmaker Wim Wenders' first feature film, Summer in the City (1971). In opposition to the song's theme of the hot summer, it plays over a scene where the main character walks through a cold and snowy day. The song has remained relevant into the 21st century, being regularly featured in television shows, movies and advertisements. "Summer in the City" has since been covered by numerous artists, including Styx, Joe Cocker and Isaac Hayes. Blues guitarist B. B. King covered the song on his 1972 album, Guess Who, a version critic Robert Christgau describes as "clumsy", and which Bill Dahl of AllMusic suggests indicates King's lack of new material. The American indie band Eels recorded a cover that appeared on the deluxe edition of their 2013 album, Wonderful, Glorious, later described by Boone as "spooky and