The Boston Globe, August 15, 2025: Full article
Last summer was dominated by the ubiquitous hooks of Sabrina Carpenter, Post Malone, and Shaboozey. This year, those ubiquitous, season-defining hits are scarce.
Shannon Larson • August 15th, 2025
Remember last summer, when Post Malone began crooning with country twang? Chances are you heard his upbeat hit, “I Had Some Help (feat. Morgan Wallen),” blasting from speakers at beaches and bars on an endless loop, whether you wanted to or not.
Now when it plays on the radio, maybe you feel transported back to those carefree days under the sun. Or perhaps you’re more of an “Espresso” devotee, and choose to revisit last year’s memories by singing along to Sabrina Carpenter’s sassy, caffeinated hook.
But this summer, those ubiquitous, season-defining hits are scarce.
“This summer is probably a sign of things to come,” said Robert Thompson, a trustee professor and the founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University in New York.
The cultural phenomenon of a mainstream summer anthem has endured for decades, emerging with force in the days of the Beach Boys, when record companies released tunes that played up the good vibes of the warmer months, Thompson said. But it wasn’t until the turn of the last century that the notion truly became institutionalized, he said, starting with New York Magazine’s 1995 “Summer Fun” issue. Just a few years later, in 1999, music critic Ann Powers introduced a bracket-style competition for the song of the summer in The New York Times.
From that point on, declaring a breakout mainstream hit for the season became a habit — something studiously examined and debated by music listeners — “and once you start doing it, it’s hard to stop,” Thompson said.
History
Since Billboard launched its Songs of the Summer chart in 2010, frontrunners in the vein of Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” and Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” have repeatedly shared a “certain feel-good quality to them,” said Joe Bennett, a professor at Berklee College of Music, who specializes in the analysis of popular music and songwriting.
“They tend to be up-tempo, often major key, very crowd-pleasing, [with] big hooky choruses, and a relatable lyric theme with the title prominently sung in the chorus, preferably more than once,” he said.
Last year was rich with earworms across genres, from Kendrick Lamar’s smash diss track “Not Like Us” and Shaboozey’s country sensation “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” to Sabrina Carpenter’s pop bangers “Espresso” and “Please Please Please.” Major pop artists Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish contributed to the list with popular cuts from their timely spring records, while Charli XCX’s blockbuster record “Brat” and Beyoncé’s country-tinged offering “Cowboy Carter” prevailed in last summer’s cultural discussion. Officially, Post Malone’s aforementioned “I Had Some Help (feat. Morgan Wallen)” emerged victorious.
The landscape this summer has shaped up to be far drier.
Based on the numbers, the songs dominating the Songs of the Summer chart are largely downbeat and mellow. Currently at No. 1 is Alex Warren’s “Ordinary,” a somber ballad with religious undertones. Following is Wallen’s “What I Want (feat. Tate McRae)” — one of several charting songs off the country singer’s lengthy album “I’m the Problem.” Others at the top are leftovers from last year (or earlier), including Lamar and SZA’s “Luther,” Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga’s “Die With a Smile,” and breakout pop star Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club.”
There are some strong, fun contenders ranking high — namely Ravyn Lenae’s “Love Me Not” and Carpenter’s “Manchild” — that could surge in popularity. Still, “no clear frontrunner seems to be emerging in popular culture as of where we are now,” Bennett said.
The stats
In July, Luminate, a music industry data and analytics company, published its 2025 Midyear Report, which found that more music is being streamed than ever before, but that growth is slowing.
“Recession pop” — music that was released leading up to and following the 2008 financial crisis — is surging in streaming so far this year and outpacing the growth of the industry at-large, according to the report. That means listeners are overwhelmingly returning to hits from artists like Kesha and Rihanna that are more than a decade old.
“It highlights a sense of nostalgia and potentially bigger themes of escapism,” Jaime Maronette, vice president of music insights and industry relations at Luminate, said in a statement. “On the other hand, genres like Christian and country are actually gaining in streams for new tracks when compared to previous years.”
Some music industry professionals have theorized that the polarized political environment — and resurgence of conservatism in American culture, in part due to Donald Trump’s reelection — have directly influenced listener habits, in turn affecting the crowning (or lack thereof) of a song of the summer this year. Others expressed skepticism.
“Pop music, to some extent, is immune to that stuff, as long as it’s not overtly political,” Bennett said. “Danceable songs and hedonistic feel-good pop music feels good to anyone, regardless of their politics.”
Gabriel Rossman, a sociology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, echoed the sentiment.
“You tend not to see big reflections of huge, social, zeitgeist-type changes in pop music,” he said. Rather, listeners typically “seek out music because it helps them focus or express their emotions.”
Since the late 1990s, negative partisanship — meaning a strong dislike for the political opposition — has been growing stronger, said Rossman, who studies the cultural industries of radio and film, as well as economic sociology. But even during particularly contentious periods, such as Trump’s first term in office, there was a song that was played on the radio or streamed more than any other and widely acknowledged as the song of the summer, he noted.
Wishful thinking?
Today, the idea of a shared summer anthem “is a nostalgic bit of wishful thinking,” Thompson said.
When the streaming era took hold via platforms like Spotify, music fans began making similar declarations that the long-unifying song of the summer no longer existed.
A decade later, both culture and how music is consumed, including on short-form video platforms like TikTok, only continue to become more fragmented, the professors said. With over 100 million songs available to stream on Spotify alone, hungry music fans have more options than ever.
“With streaming, the way we select music is different,” Bennett said. “People can simply pick the music that they like on a song-by-song basis.”
Younger audiences are also listening to music through less traditional means, including on gaming platforms and content generated by artificial intelligence, which are “not yet reflected on the charts,” Maronette said.
Fervent listeners continue to discuss the lack of a song of the summer this year.
On one Reddit thread, commenters suggested that “this summer’s singles are all a bit maudlin” and “people are streaming niche music that resonates with them.” Other commenters noted that new releases from pop artists like Miley Cyrus and Addison Rae haven’t performed as well as anticipated at the mainstream level, which could be contributing to the chart’s staleness.
Such discourse could become the norm moving forward.
“The song of the summer is dead as a national experience,” Thompson concluded.
But Bennett, who is rooting for the cheeky hit “Manchild” (No. 8 on the latest chart), remains optimistic.
“I’d love to see Sabrina win it this year,” he said. “The jury’s still out for 2025.”
Which song are you cheering on this summer? Comment with your pick for this season below.
Words: Shannon Larson
Shannon Larson can be reached at shannon.larson@globe.com. Follow her @shannonlarson98.
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