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Music is a sport, and summer season is probably the most aggressive time of the yr for artists. Which musician will reign supreme? What music shall be performed on repeat? What anthem will shade the nostalgia of our sun-smooched days? Song of the Summer is among the many most coveted trophies as a result of it lives with us ceaselessly, locked safely within the cellar of our reminiscence. It is a reminder of who we have been within the unfading mild of July, at our most radiant and carefree.
But the metrics for competitors are altering—and quick. Music streamers are swollen with content material. TikTok thinks it is aware of finest (it doesn’t). With terrifying precision, AI-generated songs are creeping into the mainstream. Yet our 9 contenders for this yr’s summer season anthem endure regardless of the sugary suck of the algorithm. They endure regardless of the artificially rendered future on the horizon.
Which leaves just one query: Who deserves the highest spot?
“You Wish,” Flyana Boss
BFFs Bobbi and Folayan are Flyana Boss. They met in faculty, bonded over shared musical tastes, and wrote a music known as “You Wish.” It options catchy lyrics like: “I’m made of sugar, spice, kanekalon, and cinnamon/ Me and my bestie are the same, like a synonym.” The duo lately went viral on TikTok, the place you’ve seemingly seen them running by way of Disneyland, a Chipotle, or the streets of Los Angeles. But don’t count on Flyana Boss to mood their tempo—they’re simply getting began.
“Padam Padam,” Kylie Minogue
Among the season’s most irresistible choices is the neon earworm “Padam Padam,” a dance flooring hit moist with infatuation. Featured on Kylie Minogue’s upcoming September launch, Tension, the music is a grasping little factor: It calls for all of you. “I think it’s time for you to take me out this club,” Minogue sings, “And we don’t need to use our words.”
“Set the Roof,” Hudson Mohawke and Nikki Nair ft. Tayla Parx
“Set the Roof” is all ambiance. Atop vibrant, skittering synths and the gooiest of home beats, singer and Arianna Grande collaborator Tayla Parx—she cowrote “Thank U, Next”—invokes the spirit of the season. Like summer season, this can be a music you by no means wish to finish. (Treat your self to Nikki Nair’s 2022 Boiler Room set when you’re at it.)
“Lipstick Lover,” Janelle Monáe
Janelle Monae’s fourth album, The Age of Pleasure, is a tropical brew of diasporic affect, and its first single, “Lipstick Lover” swaggers with sensuality. Monáe christened it their “freeassmothafucka anthem,” and the title is becoming: Over sun-colored reggae rhythms, Monáe searches for self-liberation by way of sexual launch.
“YOLO,” Pheelz
Over splashing Afrobeats, Nigerian producer-turned-hitmaker Pheelz faucets into the guts of the 2010s with a playful reinterpretation of one of many decade’s most time-worn phrases. (The time period was popularized by Drake on his music “The Motto” and means “you only live once.”) The euphoria of “YOLO” is contagious.
“Little Things,” Jorja Smith
Flirtatious, fast-moving, and sweetly textured, “Little Things” is the quintessential soundtrack to your own home social gathering meet-cute. “It’s the little things that get me high,” Smith sings, “Won’t you come with me and spend the night?” Well?
“All My Life,” Lil Durk ft. J. Cole
Drill rapper Lil Durk trades in his me-against-the-world machismo for a young meditation on perseverance and all of the hardship he’s confronted. With an help from J. Cole and backed by an affecting kids’s choir, “All My Life” is just not your typical Durk banger, however it’s a banger nonetheless, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“Spirit 2.0,” Sampha
Returning after a six-year hiatus, and following a profitable string of residencies in London and New York City in June, Sampha dazzles on “Spirit 2.0,” an absorbing reflection on what it means to reside someplace past the valley of grief (the singer misplaced his mom to most cancers simply earlier than the discharge of his 2017 debut, Process). In Sampha’s estimation, the music is about “the importance of connection to both myself and others, and the beauty and harsh realities of just existing.” It feels so.
“America Has a Problem (Remix),” Beyoncé ft. Kendrick Lamar
I imply, c’mon—it’s Beyoncé!
Honorables Mentions: “Contact,” Kelela; “Done (Let’s Get It),” Yaeji; “Anti-Curse,” Boygenius; “Pearls,” Jesse Ware; “Violet Chemistry,” Miley Cyrus; “Wilshire,” Tyler the Creator; “Just Relax,” Lola Brooke; “Calm Down,” Rema.
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