As fall foliage seeps into view, pumpkin spice dominates the menu and cable sweaters make their way back into our wardrobes, one is left wondering, with great thought and deliberation, where was the song of the summer?
The song of the summer is more so a form of cultural ubiquity than an official title. Ask anyone about the summer of 2012, and “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen will enter their nostalgic subconscious. Or the summer of 2016: “This Is What You Came For” by Rihanna and Calvin Harris dominated the airwaves, along with Drake’s “One Dance.”
Last summer, “Not Like Us” by Kendrick Lamar became a dance floor staple, and “Espresso” bolstered Sabrina Carpenter’s status as a main pop girl. Chappell Roan spawned in and “BRAT” by Charli XCX… Nothing needs to be said about an album that quite literally was conflated with summer itself. But, ask anyone about the summer of 2025, and well… Perhaps there ceased to be a “song of the summer” at all.
I could have had a swag summer with the help of Bieber; you could have had a summer riddled with manchildren and Sabrina’s Dunkin’ drink. Perhaps you were feeling Christian-coded with Alex Warren’s “Ordinary,” or maybe your friend really wanted you to listen to that one Morgan Wallen album that is allegedly everywhere, but you never seem to come across it.
Well me personally, I object to the aforementioned as songs of the summer. They were definitely omnipresent, but not in my world. Here are four picks that I empirically chose through great experimentation and hypothesizing—they were scientifically proven to be songs of the summer.
“Illegal,” PinkPantheress
I remember stumbling upon a snippet of this song early in the summer and something in my bones told me: This is a hit. As she compares an intense high to an equally intense situationship, PinkPantheress expertly uses synths and her playful vocals to bring a chaotic bliss to the forefront of the track. Her catchy lyrics are perfect for many TikTok trends, and yet the song has held its own outside of the app. What says “summer” more than having a fling and getting high?
“Whim Whamiee,” PLUTO ft. YKNIECE
If I had a dollar for every time I queued up this song in a car… It is absolutely perfect to blast while the windows are rolled all the way down. The cultural significance of this song cannot be understated—“WHIM WHAM,” “LULULEMONNN,” “IM TALMBOUT INNIT”—although already on a downward trajectory in the pop culture sphere, these phrases held a grasp on a lot of us at some point during the summer. This summer song was a tribute, of sorts, to overly arrogant and successful women; at least that’s what overcomes me when listening.
“Headphones On,” Addison Rae
Summer seems as if it has adopted whimsical and sublime status—an expectation that it cannot always keep up with. The lulls of summer truly pain me in the midst of painful heat and musty humidity, but an obvious cure comes to the forefront of my mind: putting my headphones on. Addison Rae’s discography has cemented itself as a pop bible, and with “Headphones On,” it’s almost as if she balances on a log to cross a shallow stream, juggling a quaint sound with a meditative experience.
“Henry Come On,” Lana Del Rey
It is not summer without Lana Del Rey. Every summer, a Lana song must dominate my larger summer soundtrack, and this year it was “Henry, Come On.” Country and ballads seemingly subjugated every station this summer—like, truly, stop playing Alex Warren, I beg. However, this understated country-esque, yet orchestral piece brings us to the forefront of a decaying American frontier, where such an aesthetic can no longer exist in a vacuum and instead is a reminder of the brittle nature of our current condition. Of course, we cannot forget the Ethel Cain diss track that succeeded this song—the Americana girls are fighting.
As I sat on the beach, smelling like sunscreen and sweat, I realized: Maybe there is no song of the summer, because there is no summer anymore, at least not in the conventional sense. This used to be the season of consensus, poolside choruses and dance floors united. Now, perhaps the only thing that is collective is our unsharedness. My “Whim Whamiee” is not your “Ordinary.” Your Morgan Wallen is not my Addison Rae. The internet promised democratization. What we got instead was a trade-off, monoculture for microcultures: subreddits, stan Twitter (or X…), Spotify Discover Weekly. All these rituals make summer feel uniquely ours, but never ours together. The lack of collective rhythms, a shared, communal pulse that once allowed us to march, mourn, protest together—has now broken up. While ubiquity may be dead, its funeral had a fantastic soundtrack.