26 Contenders for the 2024 Song of the Summer

Graphic by Chris Panicker

Another summer is nearing its end, giving us all good reason to have deep, existential debates about the vaunted “Song of the Summer.” We can think about the music that wafted out of cars, that soundtracked warm evening walks, that made us frantically reach for Shazam at the club amid the sweat and the stank. The truth, of course, is that there’s never just one “Song of the Summer”—music is simply too broad and too regional. Still, we’ll do our best to share some of our favorites, putting you onto good music in the process.

–Mano Sundaresan

Tems: “Boy O Boy”

On a ballad where Tems fantasizes about putting a man playing games with her soul in the Ving Rhames chokehold, the most bruising bar might actually be, “I wonder how I loved a thing like you?” Damn. Imagine waking up to that text. “A thing like you” is fuckin’ nuts, though you can’t even really blame her. “Boy O Boy” is like if a Ctrl breakup song had a baby with a Hndrxx meltdown. Tems sounds so lonely and abandoned and a little unhinged, despite the acoustic guitar riff being so warm and her restrained melodies radiating like a pink sky in the evening. It’s like being down in the dumps in paradise.

–Alphonse Pierre

Sabrina Carpenter: “Espresso”

“Espresso” was summer 2024’s song apparent from the moment it came out. Sure, it’s a safe option—that’s why the synth bass is thicker than a zinc sunscreen. Why the goofy little hook is right up front. Why Sabrina Carpenter, diva in a demitasse, is on her way to a No. 1 album. Why Nespresso’s agency is probably crying because they didn’t get the sync. My favorite part is that she never even admits she likes the guy: She’s like, “I guess so.” You’d be gloating, too!

–Anna Gaca

Glorilla & Megan Thee Stallion: “Wanna Be”

Glorilla’s default rap mode is flicking away dudes like they’re mosquitos on her neck. Over the tense, pulsing bass of “Wanna Be,” she admits to being a reformed simp, now done playing Captain Save-an-F-Boy, her signature full-bodied delivery strong enough to compete with a bulldozer. Megan stomps in like Stay-Puft, matching Glo’s flippant energy with her own casually derisive bars about stepping over rivals and ill-suited bachelors: “I’m a dog, too/I don’t wanna change him.” While Meg’s approach is more suave and matter-of-fact, both send the same message: No ghosting needed—they’re already gone.

–Clover Hope

Dee Billz, Kyle Richh & Kai Swervo: “Beckham” [ft. KJ Swervo]

Reworking the laidback drum patterns of vintage Atlanta snap music into the nervy framework of Brooklyn drill, “Beckham,” named for the erstwhile Giants star, not the English soccer icon, teeters between panic and euphoria as Dee Billz and co. trade morbid sports similes. It’s the stomps augmenting each 808, though, that are the secret to the track’s allure, making it nearly impossible to listen without triggering a primeval urge to bust a move. Since “Beckham” dropped in late May, my For You Page has been flooded with flicks of everyone from Earl Sweatshirt to Turkish gymnasts turning the same triptych of GIFs—two of Kevin Gates beating his chest and humping the air; one of a polo-clad Rick Ross running in place—into choreography set to Billz’s opening verse. Lately, I can’t get through the day without compulsively thrusting an extended thumb behind my head at least once.

–Jude Noel

Charli XCX: “Von Dutch”

I had already been booked that night to DJ at Sláinte—Peekskill, New York’s largest Irish bar—when I found out Donald Trump was almost assassinated. I wondered how the near-death of a former president would affect the mood of the evening to come. Maybe a dark pall hangs over Sláinte, or maybe the patrons free their minds and bodies under the big 5-for-$25 beer bucket banner. As I was at home putting the finishing touches on my set, I focused on “Von Dutch,” by Charli XCX, a version I had littered with cue points and loops to make it last twice as long. It’s all I wanted to play. Maybe it was the only thing I was going to play, like a kind of durational art piece. I imagined a heaving, sweaty crowd moving as one organism to the drop that comes on the and of four and those synth waves that sound like a beautiful choir of motorcycles passing you on the interstate. It’s a song that could usher in peak time at the bar, suddenly, and rapturously. I was left to conclude, however, that the 15 or so people at Sláinte that night were not dancing to “Von Dutch” because they were lost in thought amid the historic events that unfolded earlier in the day.

–Jeremy D. Larson

Verraco: “Godspeed >”

Verraco’s "Godspeed >," the mass-appeal moment on the Medellín producer’s Breathe… Godspeed EP, moves with space-mission precision between the familiar and the unexpected: Knocking dembow shifts into pulverizing 4x4 and back. Gargantuan animatronics scan the horizon. A rope slices the air. Somewhere between genre conventions and utter surprise lies dancefloor euphoria, for novice and sensei alike.

–Chal Ravens

La Joaqui, Doble P & Gusty DJ: “Terapia de Choque”

Argentina’s La Joaqui has churned out reggaeton and cumbia villera scorchers for years, but “Terapia de Choque” is the first track where the production matches her acidic, ineffable cool. There’s a devilish snarl to her curlicue vocals, every poised delivery gliding atop a shapeshifting beat. Synths zip around like an arcade room, horns endlessly bleat in a raucous stupor, and La Joaqui and Argentine rapper Doble P trade verses to capture the spontaneity of an impassioned hook up. You feel every kick, every circuitous melody. If you aren’t blitzed now, you’ll feel delirious soon.

–Joshua Minsoo Kim

Kendrick Lamar: “Not Like Us”

I remember I was in a laundromat, having a text-message conversation about “Family Matters” and “Meet the Grahams.” Within five minutes, I’d received a barrage of messages saying Kendrick had dropped again, realized immediately that his beef with Drake was effectively over, and clocked at least one other person cackling (presumably) at “certified pedophile” as he moved his whites to the industrial-sized dryer. By the next morning, “Not Like Us” was inescapable across Los Angeles County. That’s what happens when you ditch the glowering, mid-tempo recitation of character flaws for this Mustard beat—which does not literally chop up the strings from “Ether,” though it sounds awfully close—and flows borrowed from the late Drakeo the Ruler, turning the new vehicle for Kendrick’s grievances into a careening clown car.

–Paul A. Thompson

Tinashe: “Nasty”

Is somebody gonna match my freak? How much do you pay for rent? Is this your car? Can I have the aux? Do you usually drive this fast? Is it cool if I go commando? Do you like how my sweat smells? Can you slow down a little? Have you ever used a cock ring? Do you have a condom? Can you pass me the towel? Do you need to borrow a T-shirt? Cream or sugar? Can you text me when you get home? Will anybody ever love me? Are you there, God?

–Arielle Gordon

Body Meat: “Electrische”

A sweaty, musty, dimly-lit club banger awash with nonchalant, Auto-Tuned vocals and lush synth pads—but the drums are the real it-girl. There’s that driving kick, the echoed snare on the threes, and this unrelenting, metronomic percussion that cuts in and out at just the right times. You’re gonna need to reapply that deodorant for this one.

–Chris Panicker

Yuke: “Ian Goin”

The 808s have an intolerably painful kidney stone. The 808s need the Heimlich. The 808s speak feral lemur. The 808s are undergoing an invasive colonoscopy with no anesthesia.

“This is the logical excruciating endpoint of the ‘terror plugg’ style, a 75-second jolt of producer karakuli’s maddening beat-screeches,” the 808s said, when asked for comment. “Yuke weaves through the mix like a secret agent swerving around enemies, undaunted by the clamor. It could be the song of the summer in hell.”

OFFICIAL 808s DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH MEMO: For safety’s sake, avoid listening if you have a nervous disposition or are over 25.

–Kieran Press-Reynolds

Chappell Roan: “Good Luck, Babe!”

Sure, the relative ubiquity of something on my FYP isn’t the same thing as popularity in the real world. Still, it’s felt right to watch, over the past several months, as Chappell Roan went from the subject of every third video in my feed to a genuine mainstream success. It’d be unfair to pin her meteoric rise solely on her campy, ’80s-inspired summer hit, “Good Luck, Babe!,” but all its component parts—its bratty-but-earnest perspective, the vocal acrobatics of its Kate Bush–lite bridge, the exaggerated drama of its slow-fade outro—capture what keeps her songwriting so infectious.

–Marissa Lorusso

Girl Ultra: “Rimel”

You know those early days of summer, when the last cold snap of spring has passed and you find yourself going a little too hard after being cooped up for the past six months? Girl Ultra’s “Rimel” feels designed for that moment: clean, sparkling club-pop that will rejuvenate the serotonin desert your body has become. Over a throbbing four-on-the-floor foundation, the Mexico City singer Mariana de Miguel captures the thrill of one of those first nights out in vivid detail, singing of smeared eyeliner, bass pounding in her chest, and purple light dappling the dancefloor. The track is punctuated by irresistible little flourishes, like squelching acid house loops and a cheeky hook about not falling in love with your fling. I can almost feel the too-sweet tequila slushy in my hand and the concealer melting off my upper lip in the club heat.

–Isabelia Herrera

D.Silvestre: “Taka Fogo em Kiksilver”

“Lobotomia do Funk.” “Funk Diferenciado.” “Built Different.” I have yet to hear a down-to-Earth description of Pimenta Bueno’s fast-rising funk anti-hero D.Silvestre. Even within a genre as staggering as Brazilian funk, it feels like this kid came from an alien asteroid. From its gritty, Blair Witch–ass video, to kicks that feel like they’re coming from Satan’s timpani, to the spiders-crawling-up-your-back eeriness of it all, his track “Taka Fogo em Kiksilver” feels like a communication from the beyond.

–Tyler Linares

Father John Misty: “I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All”

A paranoiac, nearly nine-minute song that sounds like Death of a Ladies Man Leonard Cohen and has the lines “Parachute into the Anthropocene/An amnesiac, a himbo Ken doll.”

–Matthew Strauss

Total Blue: “Bone Chalk”

Los Angeles trio Total Blue know a thing or two about summer. Their rhythms move as lackadaisically as the sea lapping at the hull of a sailboat. Their fretless bass slips down the stave like beads of condensation on a frosty longneck. Their commitment to chill—as a vibe, a state of mind, an ethos—is total. And yet their music, miraculously, is also unusually, unerringly cool, more Japanese record collector than Café del Mar sunset chaser. When the chord changes of “Bone Chalk” pivot in a way reminiscent of Seal’s underrated “Violet,” triggering deep-seated feelings of deja vu, the feeling of bliss is equally all-consuming.

–Philip Sherburne

Diany Dior & Nav: “Favorite Lady” [ft. Cash Cobain]

Cash Cobain and Bay Swag’s instantly memorable “Fisherrr” taking over New York this year led to a whole wave of rappers hopping on the Bronx producer’s muggy sexy drill grooves, which feel like one too many tequila shots at the kickback. And, so, this city’s nightcrawlers and club dwellers had a gloriously Slizzy Summer, where you were bound to hear not just one, but probably four or five Cash Cobain productions on any given night. The unexpected highlight to me was the Diany Dior and Nav duet “Favorite Lady.” In contrast to the typically lustful grogginess of Cash Cobain and Chow Lee, Diany and Nav trade sweet, clear-eyed verses about creating time for their lovers. Nav’s part, in particular, reminds me of his moody, lovelorn SoundCloud loosies that made me root for him nearly a decade ago. Even in the fog of horniness, sexy drill has its moments for the yearners.

–Mano Sundaresan

Fcukers: “Homie Don’t Shake”

When Fcukers decided to revive ’90s dance, the trio downplayed just how effortlessly attentive their modern mix-ins would be. “Homie Don’t Shake” blends the energy of sweaty UK raves with the cherry-picked details of an indie-sleaze mixtape: that crunchy guitar riff from Beck’s “Devil’s Haircut,” cheeky triangle when the beat comes back, thick bass that replicates LCD Soundsystem’s rubbery tone. No matter where you blast it, “Homie Don’t Shake” and its simulated crowd vibes (“What are thooooose,” some dude yells midway through) achieve the blood-pumping highs of Brat Summer in the club without the key-bump comedown.

–Nina Corcoran

Clairo: “Juna”

On “Juna,” Clairo croons of an intimate connection devoid of the Machiavellian dating games we tend to play desperately: “With you, there’s no pretending. You know me.” That sense of security is sexy. Smooth jazz-R&B grooves set a sultry mood for Clairo’s fantasies of buying a new dress just to slip it off for her lover. Her muffled mouth trumpet adds an element of pouty restraint. Sometimes words aren’t enough to express unbridled desire.

–Heven Haile

The Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis: “The Time Is the Place”

Here’s a clunky cast of characters: a fuzzbox-friendly jazz guitarist, a Howard-bred saxophone savant, the ex-rhythm section of Fugazi, and you, 15 minutes late to work, dabbing at sweat stains with the hand that isn’t frantically texting your boss this week’s third “I’m so sorry but….” The Messthetics make alien punk jams best heard on sloppy summer walks—buoyed by the steamy holy-shit-ness of panic, delayed by the inevitable portion where you realize you’re already late and pretend you’re in a movie montage. Send your boss a link to “The Time Is the Place,” and I promise they’ll understand.

–Samuel Hyland

PeanutsKun: “Wha U Takin Bout” [ft. Lilbesh Ramko and Hirihiri]

The rap game in Japan is being run by a talking legume. The persona he’s donned is absurd, but PeanutsKun—a virtual YouTube streamer who moonlights as a rapper—has become the de facto mascot for Japan’s digicore scene. On “Wha U Takin Bout,” he glides over a bitcrushed trap beat with his distinct nasally voice, his syllables sometimes contorting into glitched-out waveforms. Even if you have a peanut allergy, you have to admit he’s nice with it.

–Shy Thompson

Sexyy Red: “Get It Sexyy”

My working conspiracy theory is that mad scientist Tay Keith has secretly fine-tuned his lowend to hijack the human brain (imagine a non-evil LRAD). Or maybe the reason this song hits so hard is because Sexyy Red made it for herself first, shaking off postpartum depression by getting “so turnt all my sadness was gone.” Either way, if you were outside over the last five months, and it was actually lit, you know what these 808s can do to the dance floor: BOW BOW BOW BOW.

–Vivian Medithi

Jessica Pratt: “Life Is”

This is my first summer in my thirties, which I keep telling people DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING. I’ve stayed out until sunrise many nights. I’ve worn shorter skirts and higher heels. I’ve fought hard to remain who I’ve always been: someone who chases flickering moments of excitement and strings them together into a life.

But, as the indulgences of summer have presented themselves to me, I’ve felt overwhelmed by an awareness of my unmet life expectations. I feel mounting pressure to become someone else, an adult woman with a supreme command of her hours and days, someone capable of hammering together the scaffolding of her life before time runs out.

The greatest relief I’ve felt from this cognitive dissonance has come from listening to Jessica Pratt spin her past and future together on “Life Is.” Pratt’s echoing ruminations on the hazy folk pop track capture both the nostalgia of revisiting a younger self brimming with potential, as well as the Herculean effort of leaving that person behind to become someone new. But “Life Is” also serves as a reminder that such concrete understandings of self are futile. The person you’re holding onto and the person you want to become are treading water in the same river of time that engulfs you now, grasping for something—“the chances of a lifetime,” “the age of what’s to come”—that will always be just out of reach.

–Vrinda Jagota

YT: “Black & Tan” [ft. Lancey Foux]

YT and Lancey Foux’s 480p music video for “Black & Tan” is a flashback to when T-Pain was frolicking across our TV screens as he closed out 106 & Park with the top spot while New Boyz were taking over middle school dance parties. In worse hands, it might’ve dipped too far into nostalgia-baiting (à la Tyler linking back up with Supreme), but the flexes, punchlines, charisma and humor here are all so pure you don’t need a reference point to understand this is #fire.

–Serge Selenou

Kesha: “Joyride”

This summer, you will not find Kesha traipsing around the beach sipping spritzes… because she’ll be raising hell in a Porsche Carrera. Like her delightfully chaotic single “Joyride,” Kesha wants a summer that’s brash, camp, and all-too-much. Every bend in “Joyride” diverts attention like an infinite scroll of TikToks: There’s an accordion sample, Flamenco palmas, and a spooky, simulated choir belting out the chorus. Kesha mounts it all to audition for RuPaul’s Drag Race, declaring, “I am Mother!” to her devoted Animals. It’s a mess… and an absolute blast.

–Madison Bloom

Cindy Lee: “Baby Blue”

When was the last time you put a song on and could practically feel the needle drop? Even if it still primarily exists buried in a 2-hour YouTube video and a .zip of WAV files on a Geocities page, “Baby Blue” crackles with more warmth and sunset smolder than 99% of the limited-edition colored vinyl records saturating the market. An early stunner from Patrick Flegel’s faded two-hour hit parade, Diamond Jubilee, “Baby Blue” warbles like chopped and screwed Nancy Sinatra, its allure as dazed and sublime as a stoned stroll through the park on a golden day. Peer through the fog, and you can see forever.

–Sam Goldner

Originally Appeared on Pitchfork