Handicapping The Summer Song of 2026

Olivia Rodrigo wants to have the Song of Summer 2026. She launched her new project with an uptempo single, rather than the epic ballads that had led her last two albums. She released “Drop Dead” just over a month ago, timed so that any initial buzz would carry the song through Memorial Day, although even mid-April can be a dicey proposition for any song if the initial streams disappoint.

Five weeks later, “Drop Dead” has been a consistent healthy streamer. It has already been No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and has been ratified with enough airplay that it will now read as at least a “Vampire”-level hit, no matter what. This week, it is the No. 2 request on the syndicated CHR/Hot AC evening show Liveline. Based on comments from readers and Facebook friends, it is indeed the early leader for Song of the Summer 2026. 

Wanting to have the Song of the Summer is a not-insignificant thing at this moment, when the new-release motor of the music industry is sputtering. Gracie Abrams, whose “Hit the Wall” is this week’s most added song, seems interested. Drake, reliable for years for uptempo party-starters, no matter what else you think of him, has just released three albums without a lot of candidates, although there is the titular dare of “2 Hard for the Radio” as well as “Cheetah Print.” Among other disappointments here is that “Nokia” was part of a 2025 field that included several Hip-Hop titles, which is not the case so far this year.

Madonna wants to have the Song of Summer. Billboard says she had it in 1986, despite having chosen to demonstrate gravitas with “Papa Don’t Preach.” (I would probably go with “Invisible Touch” or “Danger Zone” instead.) For “Bring Your Love” she enlisted Sabrina Carpenter and had a surprisingly warm initial reception, including the second-most mentions among friends/readers. I finally heard “Bring Your Love” on the radio a few days ago, and it sounds more immediate than it does being streamed at the desk.

It’s ironic that “Bring Your Love” has more current momentum than Lady Gaga & Doechii’s “Runway,” released a week earlier and with more-than-a-vogue-resemblance to a Madonna hit. It’s also competing with Carpenter’s “House Tour.” It’s been a while since a fourth single from a project was a serious summer candidate, but Justin Bieber’s third single, “Speed Demon,” is that, too, thanks to his post-Coachella bump.

Carpenter isn’t the only artist competing with herself. I would normally put Zara Larsson’s “Midnight Sun” and her appearance on PinkPantheress’s “Stateside” in that pile of winter/spring releases that don’t exactly qualify for Song of Summer, but both are really coming into their own now, in the same way that “Call Me Maybe” did in 2012. Also, “Midnight Sun” is appropriately themed for the season. It has also outlasted the moment where it looked like it might be eclipsed by 2014’s should’ve-been-bigger-then “Lush Life.”

Even before the longer development time for CHR hits took hold, there have been summer hits that hid in plain sight for months, from Starbuck’s “Moonlight Feels Right” to Harry Styles’s “Watermelon Sugar.” Tame Impala’s “Dracula” saw its artist’s surprise entry into the pop mainstream around Halloween. For one CHR PD I spoke to this week, it’s the defining example of when streaming-only listeners think a song is a hit and when radio listeners catch up. The Jennie remix has made it the undead – effectively a new song for the audience.

Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” is already a leading candidate for song of the year. It’s also one of the few current hits holding its own at DSPs in this week of Drake chart dominance. Like “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” it radiated out to both Country and pop radio from streaming. Like Shaboozey or “I Had Some Help,” “Texas” demonstrates Country’s current agenda-setting power, even as major-market CHR resists it. Now, Country has moved on to “Be Her,” which does feel more pop, if that’s what CHR radio needs. There was also reader support for Stella Lefty, meaning that the Country/Pop/streaming nexus has now given us both “Austin” and “Boston” in recent years.

Two years ago, in the summer of “Espresso,” Shaboozey, Post/Morgan, and “Too Sweet,” Mason Kelter noted that most of his requests were suddenly for new songs, a vote of confidence for the state of current music. (It was that observation that led to Liveline’s request tally being tabulated and Kelter eventually becoming a columnist in the Ross On Radio newsletter.)

This week, Liveline’s top 20 is led by Dominic Fike’s 11-year-old “Babydoll,” newly a radio song, but also includes Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and “Thriller” and “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers. Bieber is still competing with his own 2012 “Beauty and a Beat.”  Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams,” the Song of Summer 1977, has been in Liveline’s top 20 recently, and continues to taunt anybody looking for the good news about new music.

We’ve already had the experience of needing a bringback to compensate for a “Cruel Summer.” I wish there were more major-artist offerings as Memorial Day approaches–the excitement would be good for radio. But I haven’t had any problems filling up “Big Hits Energy,” my weekly playlist of uptempo hits and those that could be. There’s MGK & Wiz Khalifa’s “Girl Next Door,” his poppiest record since “My Ex’s Best Friend.” Then check out “Medicine” by Megan Moroney, currently climbing the Country charts, and Lainey Wilson’s “Can’t Sit Still,” a very summery-tempo song that radio hasn’t found yet. Even Maroon 5, whose last summer bid was “This Summer’s Gonna Hurt (Like A Mother),” is trying again a little less cynically at Hot AC with “Heroine.”

Tempo stopped me from anointing “Ordinary” this column’s Song of Summer last year, although that clearly didn’t matter to listeners. Alex Warren’s “Fever Dream,” more clearly intended for summer radio, is in that place where the initial excitement has worn down, but it’s already a power at WKRZ Wilkes-Barre, Pa., one of the successful medium-market CHRs that I watch, and I’m expecting the same at several similar stations.

The song this column chose instead last August, Huntr/x’s “Golden,” was the first Song of Summer that hadn’t been included in the Memorial Day preview column. Readers are excited about Ariana Grande’s “Hate That I Made U Love Me” coming next Friday. There are also new Niall Horan (“Taste So Good”) and even Backstreet Boys (“Bottle Up”) slated for early June. 

Beyond the rule that Summer Song candidates should either be fun and uptempo, or at least summery-feeling, sins of omission are never intentional. If you haven’t weighed in already, what is your Song of Summer 2026 candidate?  Meanwhile, check out all the contenders here.