Here’s just a bit of good news for a world that needs it. Yes, there will be a summer song of 2020.

No, it won’t be a reissue of Maroon 5 singing “This summer’s gonna hurt/like a mother.” Although I have noticed that WMGX (Coast 93.1) Portland, Maine, did play that song a few times last weekend.

No, it won’t be a winter or spring hit for lack of viable candidates, although “Blinding Lights,” “Don’t Start Now,” and “Say So” will indeed hover in or just below power rotation for months. 

In late April/early May, when labels’ summer song contenders usually line up in formation, things were proceeding with understandable caution. With its listening patterns disrupted, CHR wasn’t able to do much to foster new music anyway. Programmers were looking to throwback songs as feel-good balm. I heard “Wannabe” by Spice Girls on two major CHRs within a day of each other.

And yet, there was also this article about how Country songwriters and artists, looking ahead to happier times, were being encouraged to write positive, up-tempo songs. In an online panel for songwriters, “High Hopes” writer Sam Hollander had similar advice. “Nobody’s going to want to go back and listen to that quarantine banger.”

Gradually, the May releases by name acts started to materialize. There weren’t the two-a-week releases by superstar DJ/producers that had marked the Song of Summer derby in the mid-’10s, something which was starting to fade anyway. But there was Katy Perry, “Daisies”; Marshmello & Halsey, “Be Kind”; Jonas Brothers, “X”; Lady Gaga & Ariana Grande’s “Rain on Me,” Sia’s “Together,” and a summer-song-as-(continued)-comeback vehicle for Black Eyed Peas, “Mamacita (f/Ozuna & J. Rey).”

If it’s an anthem for the times you’re looking for, there’s Ariana Grande & Justin Bieber’s “Stuck With U.” “Topical is what I want in a summer song this year,” says reader Josh Hosler. “It must be about COVID-19 in a way that feels at least somewhat hopeful.” Country, which always has its own summer song battle, has a similar dichotomy: Luke Combs’ “Six Feet Apart” vs. Luke Bryan’s “Macarena”-flavored “One Margarita” or the Brothers Osborne’s “All Night.”

If it’s something more up-tempo/breezy you’re looking for, there are already frontrunners. “Just give the title to Harry Styles’ ‘Watermelon Sugar’ now,” says WKDD Akron, Ohio, PD Keith Kennedy. Styles’ song received international airplay last fall. When the U.S. single was “Adore You” instead, I was disappointed that the more traditional-sounding radio song was the one being worked to CHR. But the logic is harder to deny now.

There were also votes from Ross on Radio readers for Dua Lipa’s “Break My Heart.” At this moment, that song is hovering just below power at CHR radio, waiting for “Don’t Start Now” to finally relinquish power rotation. Dua Lipa and Styles are in a four-way tie with Surfaces’ “Sunday Best” and Megan Thee Stallion’s pop chart breakthrough “Savage,” which has the added attraction of returning Summer Song 2003 winner Beyoncé to pop radio. I’m going to add Saint JHN, “Roses,” the international hit and leading pure dance candidate, to the list as well.

Summer song candidates abound: Public’s developing Hot AC song “Honey in the Summer,” Lil Mosey’s “Blueberry Faygo,” and Cokorah & Shaggy’s “Banana,” if one summer food song is not enough. “Banana” is also the reggae-flavored summer candidate, now joined by an Afrobeat-flavored summer candidate in Young T & Bugsey’s “Don’t Rush.” It’s not being worked yet in North America, but there’s a Lennon Stella/Charlie Puth “Skoob!” soundtrack song, “Summer Feelings,” on the UK airplay chart this week, if you need a Scooby Snack instead.

As the presence of “Sunday Best” and many other titles attest, streaming continues to redefine the summer-song race, along with CHR’s ongoing attempts to figure out the right timing on new music, especially songs that begin with a TikTok and/or Spotify story. CHR got to Benee’s “Supalonely” promptly enough, but needed five months to confirm that Regard’s “Ride It” would be a great “B” for seven weeks, something that seemed obvious in December. Melanie Martinez’s “Play Date,” fun, up, breezy, just edgy enough, features prominently on Today’s Top Hits but is still below the radar at CHR.

At the same time, medium-weight pop titles from established artists — “I Love Me,” “Rare,” “You Should Be Sad” — have been jumping off quickly at CHR and hitting the wall within a few weeks. Somehow, CHR has reached a point where we expect our reaction records to do well in callout, and our balance records to react like novelties. While it was certainly hard to judge what listeners would want six weeks ago, the usual superstar lineup has also likely been disrupted by labels not wanting to take a chance on having another Song of the Summer candidate already struggling by Memorial Day.

Now, TikTok has emerged as the music department assistant, the music geek who brings a different left-field song to the music meeting every week and seems super-passionate about it until next week’s left-field song.

I’ve said for a while that radio has turned its music director duties over to Spotify and its streaming competition. Now, TikTok has emerged as the music department assistant, the music geek who brings a different left-field song to the music meeting every week and seems super-passionate about it until next week’s left-field song. Not only will there be a summer song of 2020 for those of us who look to music in times like these, but it’s entirely possible now that even with all these candidates, something could emerge on July 18 and be phenomenal by Labor Day.

And now, pump up this playlist of Summer Song 2020 Candidates.