2. Chappell Roan: “Good Luck, Babe!”
Having just hit its chart peak of No. 2 this week, almost a year after its initial release, Roan’s exuberantly hook-filled album “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” is the definition of a sleeper hit, bolstered by word-of-mouth raves and widely shared videos of Roan’s triumphant summer festival performances. The organic build was all the more impressive considering the fact that her biggest single, the spicy kiss-off “Good Luck, Babe!,” is a 2024 stand-alone single that isn’t even on the album. If this song is a harbinger for Roan’s next LP, the future is certainly bright.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
3. Shaboozey: “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”
If you want to go purely by data, you could argue that the Song of the Summer is whatever hit spends the most weeks of the season at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. By that measure, it would either be this bittersweet foot-stomper from the country-pop upstart Shaboozey …
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
4. Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen: “I Had Some Help”
… or this ode to friends in low places by a pair of established stars. “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” and “I Had Some Help” have each spent six weeks atop the Hot 100, though next week’s charts could declare a tiebreaker. Either way, lightly reckless pop-country drinking songs clearly have a hold on the culture.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. Kendrick Lamar: “Not Like Us”
Though Lamar took quite a few swipes at his rival Drake this year, including his fiery verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That” and the scathing diss track “Euphoria,” this DJ Mustard-produced banger was the one that really … ahem … struck a chord.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. Tommy Richman: “Million Dollar Baby”
Take it from Chappell Roan and Shaboozey: Sometimes the strongest case for a Song of the Summer contender is seemingly-out-of-nowhere success. After listeners were teased with snippets of the intoxicating electro-R&B tune “Million Dollar Baby” on TikTok in April, the single debuted at No. 2 on the Hot 100 — only the sixth time in history that an artist without any prior chart history debuted in the Top 2. “Million Dollar Baby” has hung around the Top 10 all summer, and it holds the record for most weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s new TikTok Top 50 chart.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
7. Charli XCX: “Apple”
We cannot discuss the music and culture of this year without admitting that, yes, summer 2024 IS brat. Charli XCX’s buzzy, slime-green-hued sixth studio album produced a handful of S.o.t.S. contenders, like the catchphrase generator “360,” the surprising, descriptively named remix “The Girl, So Confusing Version With Lorde,” or the song that soundtracked a million fan edits, “365.” My choice, though, is the deliriously catchy “Apple,” which spawned a TikTok dance craze so omnipresent and so invitingly easy that, I confess, even I know how to do it. That’s saying something.
Read More: 8 Correct Answers to ‘What Was the Song of the Summer?’
