Where's Our Song of the Summer?

The quest to locate a universally beloved bonafide hit in 2025 is proving incredibly challenging.

To understand the predicament we’re in, here at the dawn of the summer months with no proper song to soundtrack, we must cast our minds back to the golden age: one year ago. Pop’s newest it-girl, Sabrina Carpenter, enacted a one-two punch on the charts with ‘Espresso’ and ‘Please Please Please’. The ascent of Chappell Roan brought with it the comphet anthem ‘Good Luck, Babe!’. Sad bops were very in last summer, with Ariana Grande’s ‘we can’t be friends (wait for your love)’ and various tracks from Billie Eilish’s latest record leading the charge. We also had various country hits from Beyoncé, Dasha, Shaboozey and (shudder) Morgan Wallen. Taylor Swift brought Post Malone along for ‘Fortnight’. Tinashe was getting ‘Nasty’. Kendrick was ‘Not Like Us’. There were even treats for our veterans (retail workers), with Benson Boone’s ‘Beautiful Things’ gracing the speakers of H&Ms the world over.

If these songs of the summer weren’t enough – and, let’s face it, this was a generational run of hits – we were, lest we forget, in the throes of BRAT summer at the same time. Looking back on 2024’s summer now is interesting; we were still giddy with liberal optimism pre-Wotsit re-election (and, here in the UK, pre-Reform ascent), and the sheer volume of quality pop music seems to reflect that. It feels now like that summer was a last hurrah, and the mood of living in the hellscape that is 2025 is similarly matched by the charts. Now, there’s a horrifying dearth of proper hits – universal ‘Espresso’-style smashes – that we can feel just as comfortable hearing on the radio as we might hear them booming through club speakers.

That, to me, is what constitutes a song of the summer. Not necessarily the best pop music of the year (in a just world, 2025’s biggest hit would be a certain album cut – to my ear, the finest pop song of the year so far – from Lady Gaga’s MAYHEM), but rather those songs sitting comfortably at the intersection of commercial appeal and actual quality. ‘Espresso’ is a prime example, with a universally pleasing disco-pop sound and hooky lyrics that reveal their cleverness on repeat listens.

What’s the ‘Espresso’ of 2025? Uh… ‘Mystical Magical’? Keep it!

In the spirit of optimism (to a radical extent, one might say), let’s survey the contenders for this year’s title. Drake’s ‘NOKIA’ is the clearest contender, a strange curio of a track that seems to have done wonders to clear his name after last year’s ‘a minor’ saga. HAIM’s return with ‘Relationships’ is doing numbers on TikTok (at least, my side of it), as is Lorde’s ‘What Was That’; same story with several songs from the new Bad Bunny album, whose tracks have picked up steam recently despite having been released several months ago. Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s ‘luther’ is a lovely song, though perhaps a bit downtempo. Let it be known, though, that I’m okay with these picks!

Then there’s the other contenders - mostly more popular, and thus more likely to become our actual songs of the summer - which are truly heartbreaking compared to last year’s selection. The aforementioned ‘Mystical Magical’ is this year’s ‘Beautiful Things’; failing that, there’s also ‘Ordinary’, the wet lettuce of a song best known to me for its running bridesmaid joke on TikTok. ‘Anxiety’, one of talented rapper Doechii’s weakest songs to date, is the one the public have latched on to (to which I say, ‘Pacer’ was right there!). The problem with so many of these songs is that, aside from most of them being really quite poor (I’d like a personal apology from Boone for ‘Mystical Magical’), none of them scream summer. When I hear these songs, I don’t envision driving down the coast with an Aperol spritz, I envision bashing my skull in with said Aperol glass.

Benson Boone, truly the Antichrist of pop music

There’s other, less immediately popular candidates that are unfortunately much better than any of the above. Lady Gaga’s ‘Abracadabra’ was simply released too early to contend for song of the summer; same with Tate McRae’s ‘Sports car’. ‘End of the World’, the lead single from Miley Cyrus’ forthcoming album, would be a prime option if it were at all marketed to the public. Chappell Roan’s ‘The Giver’ is a bit too left-field of a pick, as is anything from PinkPantheress’ excellent new mixtape. Kali Uchis might yet have some push from TikTok, but as of now there’s nothing. Addison Rae’s ‘Headphones On’ flirted with the charts then skipped gleefully away. Even The Weeknd, known chartmaster, barely cracked the top 5 with his latest record. These songs, as much as I love them, can’t be proper songs of the summer if they’re only beloved by TikTok lipsyncers and chronically online gays.

I’m not here to diagnose the culture with fun fatigue (though that might offer a worthy explanation of the sheer dearth of hits in 2025); instead, and in the interest of keeping things constructive, please find below GAY POP’s picks for song of the summer, which I’ll update periodically. The list includes: various cuts from the aforementioned MAYHEM; ‘warm’, Ariana Grande’s sunny ode to new love; ‘Perfect Stranger’, a sweaty cruising bop from FKA twigs; several tracks from Rose Gray’s SPF-soaked Louder, Please; and Lil Nas X’s criminally underrated ‘HOTBOX’. If all else fails… please save us, Mrs. Doja Cat.