Taylor Swift didn’t even seem interested in having the Song of the Summer for many years. It could have happened more than a decade ago, but “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” and “Shake It Off” were both released in mid-August, back when that was a more-regular superstar strategy to prepare for Q4 sales. By the time Swift did have a late-spring release, it was Top 40 radio that was disdainful. It didn’t take long to decide that “Me” was not the Song of Summer 2019.
Since then, it has been reported that Swift was already gunning for Song of Summer 2020 as well. “Cruel Summer” would certainly have been thematically appropriate, but by that time Swift had called an audible with “Folklore” and returned herself to the pop culture epicenter by making a record not designed to be a pop hit. In doing so, she set up the Song of Summer 2023.
“Cruel Summer” did make an appearance when we were “Handicapping the Song of Summer 2023.” At that writing, it was a secret weapon for a handful of stations. As it turned out, “Cruel Summer” was very much of its time for what a hit song can be in 2023. It came from streaming. It came from the fans. It came, running up a hill Kate Bush-style, from the random past.
But thanks to WXKS (Kiss 108) Boston and KMVQ (Now 99.7) San Francisco, “Cruel Summer” also came from radio programmers practicing music enterprise. Radio still isn’t going off the menu that often — I hear at least four possible singles from the new Post Malone album, but broadcast radio hasn’t chosen one. Fortunately, it did when Midnights came out, and then went back to the previous Lover as well.
The most shared experience of the summer was the frenzy around Swift’s Eras Tour. (As recently as three weeks ago, I might have still chosen “Karma” in this column.) It was certainly a reminder of how much we all enjoyed gathering around a shared experience. In a summer where I might have, perhaps, been finally forced to concede that Top 40 radio wasn’t pop culture’s driver, Swiftmania meant that 102.7 Swift FM (the rebranded KIIS Los Angeles) and Tay-D-W-B Minneapolis could still be at its epicenter.
With both Top 40 radio and product still inconsistent in summer 2023, it is now Country radio that has the ability to set the agenda, particularly on the Hot 100. Country has the highest-rated current-driven radio stations. It still has a steady stream of product. Country has a label/radio relationship that has been redefined by streaming, but not shut down. It still sells songs, not just streams. If the charts had their current formulation in Country’s last dominant summer, our Summer Song of 1981 discussion might have been about “Endless Love” vs. “Elvira.”
“Last Night” by Morgan Wallen is now officially Billboard’s Song of the Summer. It was my only other serious contender. For many Ross on Radio readers, it is indeed the winner. “No question,” says Audacy VP of programming Tim Roberts. “Last Night” wasn’t a power on CHR everywhere, but it was at the medium-market stations where Top 40 still dominates. (So was “Wasted on You.”)
“Calm Down” by Rema & Selena Gomez is the most obviously summery hit that we’ve had in a while, as well as a breakthrough for Afrobeat artists (since the first Top 40 hit in the genre came from Doja Cat). In a different CHR field, we would have regretted the fact that it was a spring hit and moved on. (In fact, “Calm Down” has been around long enough to have been advertised in the Song of Summer 2022 wrap-up.) Instead, “Calm Down” remained in power through most of the summer, and was the No. 3 choice for readers. It was also a flex for radio, a song where airplay ultimately helped reinforce, not just reflect streaming.
Part of why “Calm Down” lingered was because radio took so long to recognize it as a power. In our May handicap, “Dance the Night” by Dua Lipa was one of two superstar singles released just ahead of Memorial Day. (Post Malone’s “Chemical” was the other.) Even with Barbie as the summer’s other pop culture event, programmers finally recognized it as a power in mid-August. We’re up to three hits from the Barbie soundtrack with Nicki Minaj & Ice Spice and Billie Eilish now being joined by Charli XCX. With so many mainstream pop artists in one place, I’ve found at least one more for my Big Hits Energy playlist. It’s also encouraging for radio to see summer’s “Barbenheimer” coverage and how quickly it turned around the “movie theaters will never make a comeback” stories.
Summer began with a slew of dance and hip-hop reworkings that largely cancelled each other out, although “Baby Don’t Hurt Me” by David Guetta/Anne-Marie/Coi Leray and “Jump” by Pitbull & Lil Jon emerged as the winner of those respective categories. Not every programmer was happy about so many “flips”; I would have been fine with them as part of a balanced diet of product that never arrived. Friday midnights in June and July were disappointing. At times, it felt like labels, artists, and radio had decided to take the summer off.
I’ve been both handicapping and recapping the Song of Summer in some form for nearly 20 years. This column isn’t meant to be merely a list of summer hits. I’m focusing on songs that are mid-to-uptempo (or summery in some way).
At the end of summer, I’m in another one of my cautiously optimistic moods about pop product. “Paint the Town Red” by Doja Cat helped break the mood. So did “Dial Drunk” by Noah Kahan, particularly because it’s a hit that began on the rock side. I’m not sure how whether to qualify Olivia Rodrigo’s tempo- and shape-shifting “Vampire,” but “Bad Idea Right?” certainly would have counted as a Song of Summer candidate if it had materialized a few weeks earlier. It’s nice to see new Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez singles landing the same morning. It’s nice to see Gomez following up a No. 1 hit, period, since that’s no longer a cinch these days. I’m hoping that Rema has another “another banger” coming, too.
Even before she began to appear in the same sentence with “generational artist” so often, Taylor Swift was one of the last superstars minted during the time of radio’s hegemony. At a time when it often feels like radio has nothing left to do but go back to that time — whether by throwbacks or “bringbacks” — it’s encouraging to see newer acts like Rodrigo, Doja, and even Kahan on the dais, and know that radio is still part of their story too.
That said, there have to be more hits. Consultant Guy Zapoleon estimates that there will be 15-16 consensus powers (songs that made it to power rotation for most stations) by year’s end. That’s down from 23 last year and 28 in 2020, which hardly seemed like an active year for music itself. At a moment when the national conversation is dominated by two Country records that came largely from streaming, whether either Top 40 or radio have a better-than-cruel summer in 2024 depends on their willingness not to take any more time off.
You can hear all the hits of summer 2023, as well as some that should be hits in the fall, on my Big Hits Energy playlist. And what was your Song of Summer 2023?
