Rewind through the hottest songs of the summer
Songs of the summer are, in fact, much like summer itself — at first starry-eyed and full of promise, before the months pass and everything starts to feel sticky, stale and oppressively heavy.
Earlier this summer, USA TODAY ranked every official song of the summer from the past 20 years. And with the season at an end, it’s time to look back at the hits that dominated summer 2017 — and pit them against one another for a definitive ranking.
These songs had the longest reigns on Billboard’s songs of summer chart, which left out favorites like Cardi B’s Bodak Yellow and new songs like Taylor Swift’s Look What You Made Me Do.
Judgment time!
20. SAY YOU WON’T LET GO, JAMES ARTHUR
Perhaps you were among the listeners touched by Arthur’s British accent and acoustic-guitar strumming. We, on the other hand, couldn’t get past the mildly creepy opening verse, where the object of his affections pukes, smiles and asks him to stay over.
19. THAT’S WHAT I LIKE, BRUNO MARS
At this point, most songs-of-summer contenders have been overplayed to the point of delirium. But few tracks feel as weary as That’s What I Like, the sonic equivalent of massaging your brain with a cheese grater.
18. BELIEVER, IMAGINE DRAGONS
Not only are we subjected to Imagine Dragons in seemingly every movie trailer, but Believer also became a radio hit this summer, the latest ploddingly rousing track from a band whose songs continue to be near-indistinguishable.
17. THERE’S NOTHING HOLDIN’ ME BACK, SHAWN MENDES
Another faceless pop hit that could’ve been performed by any number of artists on this list, Mendes’ Energizer Bunny of a track is destined to live on via upbeat commercials and spin class soundtracks.
16. ISSUES, JULIA MICHAELS
Michaels is an artist to root for. Despite its sugar-headache sweetness, Issues is a promising start, even if the track has, er, problems.
15. SHAPE OF YOU, ED SHEERAN
There’s something annoyingly hypnotic about Shape of You, a song you absentmindedly hum for days before realizing how it’s seeped into your psyche. A new crop of remixes have given it new life, though there’s not much that can help its chorus’ audaciously bad grammar: “I’m in love with the shape of you / We push and pull like a magnet do.”
14. UNFORGETTABLE, FRENCH MONTANA FEAT. SWAE LEE
French Montana gets bonus points for snagging Rae Sremmurd’s Swae Lee for the chorus, but unfortunately, thanks to the glut of similar, vaguely tropical songs, this track may not be as enduring as its title promises.
13. ATTENTION, CHARLIE PUTH
Like Puth’s weirdly magnetic We Don’t Talk Anymore, Attention is better than it deserves to be, considering it is basically Kanye West and Jay-Z’s No Church in the Wild beat with Puth’s paper-thin vocals on top. Still, for Kanye karaoke, it’s not bad.
12. SOMETHING JUST LIKE THIS, THE CHAINSMOKERS & COLDPLAY
The Chainsmokers are 2017’s kings of soullessly thumping background music. Something Just Like This is easily among their best-ever tracks, thanks to Chris Martin’s vocals elevating the song to something that’s at least distinctive and listenable.
11. STAY, ZEDD & ALESSIA CARA
Stay is the kind of shamelessly dramatic, swing-for-the-rafters EDM that’s laughably bombastic in most settings — but under dark enough cover, with enough adrenaline (or booze), it has the potential to be magnetic. And while it’s in vogue to hate on Taylor Swift, it’s worth noting the track is questionably similar to 1989’ s All You Had to Do Was Stay ... but worse.
10. BODY LIKE A BACK ROAD, SAM HUNT
Hunt boasting about “drivin’ 15 in a 30, I ain’t in a hurry” may give us secondhand road rage, but once we figured out the song is a compliment and not a comment on someone’s personal hygiene, the track became more enjoyable.
9. IT AIN’T ME, KYGO & SELENA GOMEZ
Nobody said songs of the summer had to be upbeat, and few tracks on this list are as depressing as It Ain’t Me, another one of Kygo’s trop-house sound-alikes that gets its sting from Gomez’ quietly devastating performance.
8. I’M THE ONE, DJ KHALED FEAT. JUSTIN BIEBER, QUAVO, CHANCE THE RAPPER
& LIL WAYNE
I’m the One is a maddeningly
obvious hit, a parade of 2017’s favorite artists that’s seemingly reverse-engineered for success. And yet this dumb song, with its ice cream truck jingle of a chorus and Chance’s winking verse, still makes us sing along, even when we hate ourselves for it.
7. MASK OFF, FUTURE
Rap flutes are easily the year’s most inscrutable hip-hop trend, and Mask Off is its definitive song. Even Future’s prescription pill-happy chorus wasn’t enough to deter its popularity, thanks to its infectious sample that inspired the year’s purest meme — the #maskoffchallenge, featuring kids wailing away on their flutes, violins and other instruments.
6. CONGRATULATIONS, POST MALONE FEAT. QUAVO
2017 was one never-ending Quavo guest verse, and his presence is heavy here, a woozy victory parade of Instagram bio-ready lyrics that deservedly earned Post Malone his biggest hit yet.
5. REDBONE, CHILDISH GAMBINO
Among Donald Glover’s many 2017 wins was his first proper hit, which he landed by making Redbone sound like nothing else on pop radio, a slice of vintage soul with pitched-up vocals rendering his falsetto completely unrecognizable. But for an artist whose music tends toward selfindulgence, going incognito was exactly what Glover needed.
4. XO TOUR LLIF3, LIL UZI VERT
XO TOUR Llif3 won the VMAs’ song-of-summer award, and in a year that feels like its foundation is crumbling, it’s fitting that MTV’s summertime category was won by an emo-pop track with the chorus “Push me to the edge / all my friends are dead,” from hip-hop’s straight-outta-Hot Topic personality Lil Uzi Vert.
3. DESPACITO,
LUIS FONSI & DADDY YANKEE FEAT. JUSTIN BIEBER
Yes, it’s everywhere. And overplayed. And, thanks to Justin Bieber and his “burrito” lyricsf-lubbing, arguably problematic. And yet, much has been written about its flawless construction, how each track continually builds on the last one, how the subtle minor keys in its chord progression give the song its uniquely yearning quality. Sorry, everyone, but the song still rules.
2. HUMBLE, KENDRICK LAMAR
Syrup sandwiches, Obama pagers, Kool-Aid for the analysts, that Grey Poupon, that Evian, that TED Talk — with everything going wrong in the world today, at least we’ve progressed enough that Kendrick Lamar’s Humble, a vividly-imagined song from arguably the greatest rapper of his generation, can rule the radio.
1. WILD THOUGHTS, DJ KHALED FEAT. RIHANNA & BRYSON TILLER
Despacito, with its 16week chart-topping run, has a lock on 2017’s official songof-the-summer title, with Humble likely the critical favorite.
And then, there’s Wild Thoughts, the true victor of 2017, blessed with the same golden Rihanna touch that made last summer’s This Is What You Came For so electric.
Yet, the best songs of summer don’t take themselves too seriously. Wild Thoughts tempers Rihanna’s lusty presence with silly lyrics and an endearingly familiar Santana sample, giving the track the same kind of levity that’s made other historic summertime favorites, from Nelly’s Hot in Herre to Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe, so much fun.
And even after a million and one listens, Bryson Tiller’s Bobby Boucher line still, unintentionally, makes us laugh.