In recent years, the “song of the summer” has lost much of its meaning: it’s become a marketing ploy to bolster an artist’s streams, or it’s prematurely declared before the summer even begins (eg. Sabrina Carpenter’s chart-topper “Espresso”). To switch things up, we asked our favourite music writers to ignore the charts and the hype, and to share the song that they feel best represents their vibe this summer.
Much ink has already been spilled about the “summer of ‘brat.’” In addition to being the (it currently holds an ), Charli xcx’s sixth LP also “highlights how many young women currently aspire to live,” “dirty, hedonistic, happy and braless.” Personally, I can’t speak to the specifics of the “brat” phenomenon, which has taken over both and this summer.
As a long-time Charli fan, I’m mostly just happy that the album that finally pushed the English singer-songwriter into the pop stratosphere is one that embraces and elevates her roots as a hyperpop pioneer and club-rat provocateur. Pondering my song of the summer, I didn’t immediately think of "brat" — my shortlist includes Tems’s “ ,” Tinashe’s “ ” Dehd’s “ ” and This Is Lorelei’s “ .” But no song hypes me up quite like “365,” the closing track and the evil twin of the album’s hit single “360.
” An ode to the skittish euphoria of a drug-fuelled party lifestyle — “No, I never go home, don’t sleep, don’t eat Just do it on repeat” — “.
