By BRIDGET BROWN Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Every year, summer arrives with a buzzing energy. School’s out, the sun is shining, music is blaring out of car windows and speakers are blasting on the beach.
But this summer, the beaches seem quieter. The playlists feel aimless. The radio waves aren’t being dominated by the usual upbeat, sing-along tune. Where is our song of the summer?
In this age of fractured listening habits, it’s hard to fully quantify a yearly winner. However, Billboard’s weekly Song of the Summer chart attempts to crown one each year by tracking streaming, airplay, and sales between Memorial Day and Labor Day in the U.S. Often, the song is effervescent, from Katy Perry’s “California Gurls,” the inaugural pick in 2010, to last year’s “I Had Some Help,” by Post Malone and Morgan Wallen.
But for the past 14 weeks and counting, the top spot has been held by a love ballad: Alex Warren’s “Ordinary.” As Berklee College of Music professor and forensic musicologist Joe Bennett notes, the February release is “a fair bit slower than the mean average for the Hot 100, or for a historical song of the summer.”
So how has Warren’s romantic slow jam rested comfortably in the top spot for virtually the entire summer?
Listeners are turning back to familiar hits
One reason why “Ordinary” has maintained its top spot might be that the competition is scarce this year. The song of the summer is typically released far before the solstice, but even so, interest in the latest offerings from our favorite pop stars is also waning, leaving little competition for Warren. For instance, the likes of Justin Bieber and Sabrina Carpenter have given us new music this summer season — but nothing has taken off like “Ordinary.”
According to a mid-year report from Luminate, the company that produces data for the Billboard charts, listeners are clinging to the past and choosing older tunes.
Streaming on new tracks declined by 3.3% in the first half of 2025, compared to 2024. Only three of the report’s 10 top songs — based on on-demand audio streams in the U.S. — were released in 2025. Most of the songs on Billboard’s charts have been there for dozens of weeks, like Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club,” which currently sits at No. 8 on the summer chart, and has been on the Hot 100 for 63 weeks.
Jaime Marconette, Luminate’s vice president of music insights and industry relations, says the disinterest in new music, combined with our wistful listening habits, is also leading to the resurgence of “recession pop.”
“Recession pop” refers to music that was originally released leading up to and following the 2008 financial crisis. “We’re actually seeing pop music from those years outpace the growth of the industry at large. It highlights a sense of nostalgia and potentially bigger themes of escapism,” Marconette explained.
In addition to the pop hits of the late aughts, the shelf life of last year’s songs has proved long, crowding the space and leaving little room for new music to break through. Last summer was “an absolute tsunami, surplus, exuberance of pop,” says Paula Harper, a musicologist and assistant professor at the University of Chicago.
“When I’ve talked to folks about the 2025 song of the summer, it’s not uncommon for them to cite a song from one of the 2024 releases — and then they sometimes get jumpscared when they realize how long ago those songs actually originally came out,” Harper said, pointing to TikTok as one engine that kept their popularity going.
What does the popularity of ‘Ordinary’ say about listeners?
It’s not unusual for the song of the summer to be a ballad — think Olivia Rodrigo’s “Driver’s License.” But they’re not designed to rule the season.
“It’s not going to keep the mood of the barbecue lively, it’s not going to pep up the pool party,” Harper says of “Ordinary.” “Ultimately, it’s engineered for something other than song of the summer status.”
Ethan Hein, an adjunct professor of music at New York University and the New School, says listeners’ gravitation toward a song like “Ordinary” reveals something about their well-being.
“When I teach songwriting, I always assign a fun pop banger as one of the projects, and this year no one felt much enthusiasm for it, or turned in somber tracks like ‘Ordinary,'” he said. Hein thinks the disinterest in typical upbeat pop signals a contempt for both the present and the future.
“Usually, pop music is aimed at young people. I remember being a kid in the ’80s and ’90s and thinking how futuristic all the synth pop, hip-hop and techno sounded,” Hein said. “But now, I don’t know a lot of young people who are excited about the future.”
Music psychologist Ray Leone, who studies the intersectionality of music and health, says people may be favoring “Ordinary” because it is the antithesis of a seemingly extraordinary state of the world.
“There seems to be chaos every day, no matter where you look,” Leone said. “I think to counter that, people are looking more inward. Looking for something personal to connect to. It’s almost as if a song like this speaks to us on a personal level as opposed to a collective level.”
Warren’s love song, written about his wife, seems to be acting as a beacon of light in dark times.
“Songs of love and devotion are a constant in our world,” said Bennett. “Whatever else is happening in our lives, someone somewhere will always be singing a timeless love song.”
This year’s song of the summer is a ballad, not a banger. Here’s what that says about us
