Where Are the Songs of the Summer?

Every Spring, I look forward to seeing which pop releases look primed to dominate the summer. In 2017, we had an absolute Latin explosion thanks to songs like "Despacito" and "Mi Gente". In 2020, amidst the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we looked backwards to the funk and disco sounds of the 1970s. And in 2024, we had an absolute pop explosion, with a plethora of hits from acts like Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter, and Chappell Roan, as well hip-hop crossover hits like "Million Dollar Baby" and "Not Like Us".

So then color me surprised when I fast forward to August 2025, asking "…where are the summer hits?"

Let’s take a look at the Billboard Hot 100 top 10 as of the initial drafting of this article (August 2, 2025):

1. Alex Warren - "Ordinary"
2. HUNTR/X - "Golden"
3. Justin Bieber - "Daisies"
4. Morgan Wallen & Tate McRae - "What I Want"
5. Morgan Wallen - "Just In Case"
6. Ravyn Lenae - "Love Me Not"
7. Teddy Swims - "Lose Control"
8. Shaboozey - "A Bar Song (Tipsy)"
9. Kendrick Lamar & SZA - "Luther"
10. Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars - "Die With A Smile"

"Ordinary" is a mellow chamber pop love song. "Golden" is a new entry and the poppiest number in this group, a track from the soundtrack for the wildly successful KPop Demon Hunters Netflix movie. "Daisies" is another mellow soft rock entry. Morgan Wallen continues to dominate the charts with his increasingly stale blend of country and trap. "Love Me Not" is a genuinely interesting alternative pop track from a relative newcomer to the scene. And the last 4 songs here are all hits from 2024; with the exception of "Luther", which was released in late November, all of the tracks in this group had already dominated the charts throughout 2024.

To be clear, this is not a bad set of songs; I like "Ordinary" (even though it’s become resoundingly overplayed after 8 weeks at #1), I like Justin Bieber’s new music (his album SWAG is one of the more interesting releases in pop music this year), and KPop Demon Hunters brings some new faces to the top 10 for the first time in a hot minute. But this list is not fresh. Nearly half of the songs here are from 2024 (that number was even higher a month or two ago), and even more songs from last year and beyond are sitting just outside of the top 10 and occasionally pop back into the upper echelon. Heck, "Lose Control" has spent over one hundred weeks on the Hot 100. On top of that, the hits that are from this year are missing the energy, spunk, and fun that made pop in 2024 so memorable.

Lately, I’ve been reflecting on why this may be, and I have a few theories based on takes I‘ve seen online and vibes I’ve felt myself. So let’s talk about it: why does pop music feel so stale right now?

Everyone Already Dropped in 2024

It’s hard to overstate just how absolutely stuffed 2024 was in pop music. Just to name a handful of artists who released in 2024, we had releases from Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, Bruno Mars, Kendrick Lamar, Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX, Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, Post Malone, Jack Harlow, and Kesha. We were also introduced to newcomers like Chappell Roan, Tyla, Benson Boone, Shaboozey, and Tommy Richman. We had the biggest rap beef in decades between Kendrick Lamar and Drake. It felt like we were finally breaking out of the pandemic-era rut that pop music had been in for the last few years. To say we were fed in pop music in 2024 is an understatement; it was an absolute pop explosion, and the culture was locked in.

In fact, it was so much of a pop explosion that many songs on the Hot 100 today are leftovers from last year. On top of the aforementioned leftover tracks still hovering in the top 10, songs like "Beautiful Things", "Birds of a Feather", "I Had Some Help", and "APT" are still floating around in the top 40 despite being released nearly a year ago or more ("Beautiful Things" first appeared on the charts in February 2024, peaked at #2 in late March, and still pops back into the top 10 from time to time over a year later).

Many of these artists are either currently on tour for their respective releases or only recently finished up their promotion cycles, so it makes sense that many of them haven’t gotten back around to dropping more music just yet. Sabrina Carpenter is probably the biggest name from 2024 to also be releasing music this year, and while "Manchild" has not reached the dizzying heights of her singles from Short n' Sweet, it did still debut at #1, so it’s shaping up to be another successful year for her. Benson Boone also released his sophomore album, American Heart, and although it's had a smaller cultural impact than Fireworks & Rollerblades, it did nonetheless debut at #2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart and has cranked out two more top-20 singles.

There’s still been a lot of good new music released this year, but the heaviest hitters are coming off of the absolute monster that was 2024, and pop as a whole is likely still catching its breath.

The Pop Monoculture is Dying

I think we’re seeing a shift in how hits are generated and how sonic trends come about. In years past, the prevailing sound in pop music was very singular. In the early to mid-2000s, various hip-hop and R&B subgenres were topping the charts left and right. The late 2000s and early 2010s took us to the club (thank you, Mic The Snare, for so perfectly coining "The Good Time"), meaning electro-pop, dance-pop, and hip house ruled supreme. In the mid-2010s, we saw a trap-pop phase and a tropical house phase before trap completely took over the industry in the latter half of the decade.

However, more and more songs nowadays are seeing success by going viral on TikTok, and the labels have taken notice. The social media app has all but obliterated the barrier to entry for new artists at this point, with many aspiring songwriters picking up record deals after one of their songs became a viral sound on TikTok. This has naturally led to an increase in indie, alternative, and singer-songwriter artists entering the pop foray; some of the biggest new names in pop this year, like Alex Warren, sombr, Addison Rae, and Ravyn Lenae, found crossover success in this realm.

TikTok and short-form content more broadly have also brought about a new era of legacy hits from decades past enjoying renewed and sustained popularity on streaming. Songs like Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris", Coldplay's "Yellow" and "Sparks", Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams", and Lord Huron's "The Night We Met" have been mainstays on the Spotify Global Top 50 for months now.

Couple that with how streaming and curated playlists have made it easier than ever to find exactly the types of music we’re looking for in a given moment, and we’re seeing a lot more siloing and fragmenting of "the pop sound." Last year, we had brash club pop trending while a country song sat at #1 for 19 weeks, and shimmery retro pop and hip-hop crossovers shared space in the top 10. The top streaming charts right now are a wild mix of songs from 2025, 2024, earlier in the 2020s, the 2010s, and beyond. There’s no longer one "sound" that rules pop music. More than ever, what rules the season now highly differs from person to person and from subgroup to subgroup.

It's a Bad Time Right Now

Let’s be honest, 2025’s been kind of a shit year. Economic uncertainty is high, people feel less safe than ever, there's a genocide halfway across the world that governments are willfully downplaying, and the current occupant of the White House is tearing away our fundamental rights to line the pockets of him and his rich friends. Things aren't fun right now; we're not having a good time.

It makes sense that when the world feels uneasy and scary, we turn to things that bring us joy, comfort, and escape. We saw this during the 2008 recession with the rise of EDM, electropop, and other club-inspired sounds (which we now retroactively refer to as "recession pop"); acts like Kesha, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Usher, Pitbull, Akon, and T-Pain scored massive dancefloor smashes during this era. This also happened during the outset of COVID, with disco, funk, and other 70s-inspired sounds making a huge resurgence (disco was already starting to bubble up in late 2019, but it went to the stratosphere in the spring and summer of 2020).

I think we're seeing that in a slightly different way right now; with the resurgence of a huge swath of legacy hits on streaming, people are reaching far and wide for familiar and comfortable songs. In an interview with The Guardian, Jaime Marconette, the vice-president of music insights and industry relations at Luminate, opined that "Perhaps it’s just a coincidence, but we’re also starting to notice a jump in people streaming recession pop [music released around 2008 with escapist themes from artists such as Taio Cruz and Nicki Minaj] and it does point to a sort of this communal yearning for things that bring comfort from the past."

Additionally, with the conservative slant our society is currently on, there's also been a shift towards more culturally conservative sounds in popular music. Country and Christian genres have seen particular success this year. Morgan Wallen's I'm the Problem album has ruled the Billboard 200 albums chart for months now (though I think that's also due to its 37-song tracklist gaming its streaming numbers), and even established acts like Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan are utilizing country in their new releases, albeit in creative and subversive ways. Time will tell how long this trend lasts, but right now, it's thriving.

How Does the Rest of 2025 Look?

With all the staleness we've felt in pop music this summer, it's easy to forget that there have still been some really great releases this year. Kendrick and SZA's aforementioned "Luther" spent 3 months at #1. Bad Bunny rattled off a slew of top-10 hits from his Debí Tirar Más Fótos album that managed to bring back some of the fun reggeaton and dembow vibes that he had ruled the charts with in 2022 while also being culturally present and showing love and focus to his Puerto Rican heritage. Lady Gaga’s MAYHEM, currently my frontrunner for album of the year, is a fantastic body of work that harkens back to both the 80s and her electropop glory days. And as terrible as Drake and PartyNextDoor's $ome $exy $ongs 4 U project was, "NOKIA" was a genuinely fun summery moment that showed what pop-rap could be in 2025 if we just decided to have some fun.

There are also some great projects still coming later this year. Ed Sheeran, Cardi B, the Jonas Brothers, and Mariah Carey all have projects scheduled for August and September, and others have been speculated to have new albums on the horizon as well, so there's still time for pop music to pick up the pace in 2025. Maybe 2024 was so monumental that pop just needed a moment to breathe. Or perhaps we'll find a way to shake off the initial shock of Trump 2.0 and resurrect pop moving into the next year (joy as resistance is powerful). Only time will tell how pop in 2025 is remembered.