The Song of Summer 2026 Is …

Sometimes there’s suspense about the Song of the Summer. 

This is not one of those years.

Among Ross on Radio readers, Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” is the clear Song of Summer winner by nearly a 2:1 margin over all other songs combined. 

“Is anything even close?” asks WHBC-FM (Mix 94.1) Canton, Ohio, PD Joel Murphy.

“Not even a question,” declares Audacy/Cleveland PD Chase Daniels.

“At this Texas CHR, it’s going to be our most played song of 2026,” says KNDE College Station PD Rob Mack.

There are summers when I’ve made what seemed like a contrarian choice at the time. Last year’s Ross on Radio Song of Summer, “Golden” by Huntr/x needed most of the summer to take hold at radio, although it has been pretty well borne out by now. But I’m not pitting myself against the rest of humanity this year.

If I had opted for a more recent release, I would have had to disqualify my alternate choices — “Dracula” by Tame Impala & Jennie or “Midnight Sun” by Zara Larsson — as well. Both of those were also Winter ’26 holdovers, although a remix effectively made “Dracula” a current again. (Slate’s Chris Molanphy does point out that Langley’s CHR radio run coincided more with summer.)

There is the matter of the 14 CHR reporting stations that aren’t playing “Choosin’ Texas,” all of them in top 35 markets, some of them successful outlets like WHTZ (Z100) New York. A&R/programming Keith Naftaly would have preferred “an option that’s known by all members of any household and crosses over any which way.” But he chose “Texas,” too.

That said, in many of the medium  and small markets where CHR is healthiest, “Choosin’ Texas” is a CHR power-rotation record. That it has become a 19-week Billboard No. 1 and daily Spotify leader has already prompted this column to ask if Country is now the center of the Hot 100 universe, whether CHR still has veto power, and what ubiquity is now. (Update, both Z100, which didn’t play Langley, and Hot AC WNEW New York, which did, were up in the August PPM ratings.)

There’s an interesting parallel this summer in the UK, where Sam Fender & Olivia Dean’s “Rein Me In” is now the longest running No. 1 in UK chart history. Yet, it prompted a Guardian story asking “why have so many people never heard it?”) Then, on Friday, Sept. 4, “Choosin’ Texas,” which had been lurking on the UK charts since its release, pushed “Rein Me In” out of No. 1.

There’s also a discussion to be had about whether “Choosin’ Texas” is Country radio’s song of the summer, since it remained ubiquitous, but had already been moved to chart recurrent status. The other choice is Stella Lefty’s “Boston, another streaming hit now taking hold at CHR as well. (Country also had its summer comeback vehicle in Kenny Chesney’s “Carry On.”)

When I named “Golden” last summer, it didn’t yet have radio’s full endorsement, although that woulde come. For reader Bernardo Moronta, though, “I love the Ella record, but I’m in the NYC market and don’t hear it enough to vote for.” He would go with Shakira’s “Dai Dai,” which was also Ben Reed’s choice. 

Among the minority of readers voting for something other than “Choosin’ Texas,” the leader is “Dracula.” I’m declaring it my CHR Song of the Summer — a rare occasion when that choice hasn’t tracked with the Song of Summer overall. Such are things now.

It is not Langley’s fault that while she soundly thrashed all comers, there were dismayingly few of them. Only Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drop Dead” was an uptempo superstar release geared for summer contention. Taylor Swift’s “I Knew It, I Knew You” and Ariana Grande’s “Hate That I Made You Love Me” were hits, but stately. Other major artists (Sombr, Bruno Mars, Harry Styles, Drake, Gracie Abrams, Noah Kahan) were decidedly midtempo and sometimes mid. Katseye’s “Animal” certainly qualifies, but it’s a late arrival, and I can now add Miley’s “Bass Persuades.” This is the year that answered, “What if they gave a summer and nobody came?”

KNDE’s Mack expresses the “unpopular opinion” that CHR product was pretty good this summer. Even if I could give you that, I wanted more of it. The dismaying part is that a half dozen songs in radio’s grasp would have made a difference — if “Dai Dai” had been as big here as the rest of the world, for instance. If large-market CHR had powered “Fever Dream” by Alex Warren. (The medium-market CHRs I look at did power it.) But also, Slayyyter’s “Dance” or Hugel’s “Movin’ to the Sun” or Fenix Flexin’s “Rubbers.”

You can hear those songs, as well as all the uptempo hits of summer ’26, on my Big Hits Energy playlist. Meanwhile, I’m trying to build up a fall stockpile for the slowdown when holiday music hits. So what was your Song of Summer 2026.