Songs that become popular in the summer months often become the most popular and memorable songs of the entire year.
From 2007’s “Hey There Delilah” by the Plain White T’s, to 2012’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye, to last summer’s “Can’t Stop This Feeling” by Justin Timberlake, songs that come out during the hottest months of the year always stick with us, whether we’re fans of the artist or not.
This summer’s soundtrack is composed of ten songs that have made it to the top of the charts on popular streaming sites, including iTunes and Spotify.
Though “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi was actually released in January, it became popular in the mainstream this summer after Justin Bieber heard the song and asked to be featured in the remix. This particular song sparked tons of internet covers and, according to Billboard, is the first song performed mostly in Spanish to reach the top of the Billboard Top 100 since Los del Río’s “Macarena” hit the number one spot in 1996. It remains the number one most downloaded and listened-to song on both Spotify and iTunes.
“Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran is another song released this past January that has stayed relevant and popular all year and will most certainly be associated with memories of this summer. It is currently one of only three songs with over one billion streams on Spotify.
Miley Cyrus’ single “Malibu” is the lead single from her upcoming album set to be released in October of this year. Listeners are taking the song and its music video as a return to Cyrus’ earlier days as a calmer, more tame artist. The music video featured Cyrus wearing all-white, representative of her more innocent style.
“Mask Off” by rapper Future is his best-charting single to date, having spent eight weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. The original song was released on April 18, and the remix came out May 23. His album “FUTURE” is his second album in a row to reach the number one spot on Billboard’s 200. His performance of the song at the BET Awards last month was well-received.
Kendrick Lamar’s “HUMBLE” was released in March as a single off of his album “Damn,” which came out in April. The single is Lamar’s first song as a lead artist to be featured as Billboard’s number one song.
“Attention” by Charlie Puth was released in April as a single off of his second album. The song has climbed to the second most-downloaded song on iTunes. Puth stated in an interview with Billboard that he was inspired to write the song after seeing an Instagram post someone wrote about their ex-girlfriend.
DJ Khaled released “I’m the One,” a single from his tenth studio album, “Grateful,” back in April. The song features several artists, including Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance the Rapper and Lil Wayne. The song debuted at number one on the Billboard + Twitter Trending 140 chart, which measures the speed and frequency at which people on the internet are talking about artists and their music on twitter. Over the summer, the song made it to the second-most streamed song on Spotify.
“Something Just Like This” is a song off of The Chainsmokers’ debut album “Memories…Do Not Open” and features Coldplay. The song was released February 22 and was later featured in the 2017 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament.
Cheat Codes’ song featuring Demi Lovato, “No Promises,” was released in March. Cheat Codes and Lovato recently performed the catchy song on “The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon.”
Lastly, Imagine Dragons’ single “Believer” came out Feb. 1 and peaked at number six on the Billboard Hot 100. The song is the first by Imagine Dragons to reach number one on Billboard’s Adult Pop Songs radio airplay chart, and it was used in the season finale of the show “Riverdale.”
These ten songs have become popular this summer on multiple platforms, and if they follow the same pattern as previous hit summer singles, they’ll remain popular for years to come.
