Can we still fall in love (with a song) this summer?

The vibes were off but here's my summer playlist.

There was no Song of the Summer after all. Various theories have been posited as to why (this NPR writeup is a good analysis), but I’d chalk it up to a coincidental off-cycle for most of our main pop stars. Last year gave us enough for the rest of the decade, what with the Charli/Sabrina/Chappell trifecta and “Not Like Us” being inescapable. Plus, the whole Trump 2.0 thing has us all in a bummer. Maybe I’m just getting older and grumpier, but the vibes were rancid this season.

Photo by /u/nyc-data-geek on Reddit

Not even Obama is feeling it: as of press time, the former POTUS still hasn’t put out his annual summer playlist, even though he recently shared some book recommendations. The latest he’s ever shared a playlist was in 2019, when it was posted on August 24.

But as with last year, I’ve put together a playlist of new music that I listened to a lot between Memorial Day and now, with brief notes on most of them.

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Songs of My Summer

Mostly a mix of pop, country, electronic, and rock. Here’s the Spotify playlist:

Illegal – PinkPantheress

My name is Pink and I'm really glad to meet you / You're recommended to me by some people

This is my personal song of the summer, if anyone is asking. I love how Pink’s production has only become more and more chaotic. She went studied film in uni so I really need her to do one of those Letterboxd Four Favorites videos!

Starlight – Danny L Harle, PinkPantheress

I've met someone like you, they don't love me back

Electronic collab of the season IMO. I saw Danny do two DJ sets at Primavera Sound earlier this year, the first night was was a great set (he played this song before I knew what it was) but it was 4 AM and I was so tired that I was falling asleep while standing up and strangers kept on prodding my awake lol. The day after, he closed out the entire fest but his trollish style of DJing did not play well with the general audience so it was a strange vibe.

DELUSIONAL. – Kesha

The way I'm single, do it so obscene / Watch me gettin' hotter on your cheap TV

I think it’s boring when famous musicians sing about being famous musicians, which afflicts Kesha’s new album, the name of which is un-Googleable. I love the harpsichord-ish intro to this particular song, which sounds like something A.G. Cook could have produced.

Gnarly – KATSEYE

Gang gang

Just with Camila Cabello’s “I Luv It,” this is a hyperpop ripoff that I really hated until that stupid “gnarly” hook got stuck in my head and now I luv it. No surprise that Alice Longyu Gao wrote the original demo, but curious that she didn’t actually produce it because the beat sounds like something she’d create.

Golden – HUNTR/X (EJAE, AUDREY NUNA, REI AMI)

Born to be, born to be glowin' / 밝게 빛나는 우리

We may not have had a song of the summer, but KPop Demon Hunters was indisputably the movie of the season. Because I was a bit late to the phenomenon, my first time hearing this song was during karaoke and even then I knew it was… gold. I cannot wait for this to be performed at the Oscars.

Sapphire (Punjabi Version) – Ed Sheeran, Arijit Singh

ਤੇਰਾ ਹੋਕੇ, ਮੈਨੂੰ ਖੋਣਾ / किनारा तू, मैं सफ़ीना / ਤੈਨੂੰ ਪਾ ਕੇ ਹੀ ਪਾਰ ਲੱਗੇ

(Surrendering to you, I want to lose myself / You are the shore, I am the vessel / I can only reach the other side with you)

The verse is fine, and the pre-chorus sounds like something that would play during the end credits of a bad kids movie. But when Sheeran launches into the bhangra chorus, it’s saccharine pop at its best. The “normal” version of the song features a bridge sung by monstrously popular Indian singer Arijit Singh, which is the best part. He takes center stage on this alternate version, which Sheeran says is the one he listens to every morning with his daughters. I looked up the translation for the Punjabi lyrics and they’re so romantic and poetic.

Believer – Annahstasia

And maybe where I go / I can't take ya all the way / Does that mean / I'm only loyal if we stay the same

Every now and then, there’s a song so captivating that I drop whatever I’m doing and rewind to the start to give it my full attention. That happened with this tender epic, which came up on Spotify’s New Music Friday playlist while I was cleaning my apartment. The production is flawless, gradually expanding the soundscape into a cinematic catharsis. Through Annahstasia's vocal performance, a fairly hackneyed expression (“Can I be lonely here with you?”) becomes a revelation. I hadn’t heard of her before this (though she appears in the music video for Kendrick and SZA’s “Luther”) but I know her now. The whole album is great, and the Tracy Chapman comparisons are obvious but not unearned.

Fuck Me Eyes – Ethel Cain

They wanna take her out / But no one ever wants to take her home

The sequel to “Bette Davis Eyes” we never knew we needed.

Is It a Crime – Mariah the Scientist, Kali Uchis

Let 'em know we don't give a fuck, all they want to see is us break it off

DAISIES – Justin Bieber

If I could get in, drop me a pin, hop in the whip and come over

Who knew that the Justin Bieber album called SWAG would turn out to be… pretty decent? Listeners immediately clocked the influences from Dijon and Mk.gee, so it makes sense that one of the best tracks on the whole thing is the one that the two of them worked on.

The album is too long and kind of all blends together by the end, so no surprise that the first three songs on SWAG are the most notable. “All I Can Take” is the “best” one, “Daisies” the catchiest, and “Yukon” for whatever reason I’ve heard on a few NTS Radio mixes this past month, but I can’t seem to find any hard evidence.

Not really sure what that whole “your skin white, but your soul black” skit is about. It’s the same shit the Biebs pulled when he sampled Martin Luther King.

Discovery Channel – Hayley Williams

I can't heal, you keep ripping me open

Not a fan of the initial release strategy of the Paramore singer’s new project—seventeen new songs simultaneously released as separate singles—but absolutely love the work itself. Fortunately it was just packaged together as a proper album.

It's hard to pick a favorite of the original set of singles, but I’ll go with “Discovery Channel,” which interpolates that song about you and me babe being nothing but mammals. Then she takes it a bridge further, shifting the metaphor to one of emotional devastation. If “elder emo” were a genre, this would be it.

Speaking of elder emo, Plain White T’s and We The Kings are performing at Xanadu in November… 👀

South Of Sanity – Zach Top

When we hung up she was talkin' leavin' / Now how am I supposed to sing and play

Thus begins the obligatory country corridor on this playlist.

Oneida – Tyler Childers

I've been workin' on learning that song you’ve been dying to sing / About weddings and rings

Sniper Hunter suffers from overstuffed, brickwalled Rick Rubin production but the songs themselves are great. Case in point.

You Still Got It – Brett Young

Now, what you gonna do with a beat-up heart like that?

Bro country and TikTok pop have more in common than fans of either would care to admit. Thematically this is identical to a Gracie Abrams song.

Legs – Annie DiRusso

Well, I think you want me

This was released a year ago but it’s one of my most played songs in the past couple months. Idk it really works for me. A pop punk anthem about situationships. (Shoutout to the raucous “Good Ass Movie,” another great song of hers.)

Heartthrob – Indigo De Souza

I really put my back into it

Apparently she encouraged her fans to brigade/harass a Pitchfork critic for writing a mixed review? Not great but I’m glad that music is one of the few places where I’m not extremely online.

WE DONT COUNT – Yves Tumor, NINA

'Cause you won't leave me hanging / 'Cause you know I'm right

DULL – Turnstile

And there's a ringing when you talk to me

Because of a schedule conflict I skipped seeing them at Primavera Sound in favor of Frost Children. A friend of a friend works for their label so I wanted to support, and it was a really fun set (it drew their biggest crowd to date) but I do lowkey regret not seeing Turnstile.

day 2 – late night drive home

It's a silly game we play in these modern ages / Looking for lust in the love of metallic rust

Every generation now has its devotees of The Strokes and I think that’s beautiful. The newest album from this El Paso quartet, as i watch my life online, reckons with how the internet and disconnection from being irl has warped a generation of young men. (The title of one highlight, “Terabyte,” refers to the size of the narrator’s porn collection.) So in a way, it’s like if The Strokes covered The 1975.

WTF Goin – Metro Boomin, Young Dro

Ay, what the fuck goin'?

This whole mixtape takes me back to the college parties I went to ten years ago (complimentary).

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Some Good NTS Radio Mixes

United In Flames w/ Malibu & DJ Something, 31.07.25 — Ambient trance, with a lot of Paulstretched versions of big tent EDM anthems. (Probably the only time Galantis will be played on NTS.) The NTS Discord channel is usually pretty chill but when the last track in this mix started playing, the chat went crazy.

Otaku: Ridge Racer, 24.06.25 — What it says on the tin.

Rahill, 13.08.25 — Two hour jazz journey.

In Focus: Tatsuro Yamashita, 17.04.20 — The godfather of city pop.

In Focus: Soo Young Park, 06.12.24 — “An exploration of sounds from an expanse of US and east Asian independent rock, all connected by Seam and Bitch Magnet founder, Korean-American musician Soo Young Park.”