reality check: the elusive song of the summer isn't a song at all
why the coldplay kiss cam video is the breakout hit of 2025
Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal published an article lamenting the dearth of pop hits this summer. Earlier this month, Business Insider declared the current pop music landscape to be in a “summer slump.” They’re right that there is no ubiquitous, breakout hit blasting everywhere from da clerb to toddler birthday parties. But the summer’s biggest hit happened anyway. We’ve all consumed it - voraciously, even. We couldn’t stop clicking on it.
The smash hit of the summer was the Coldplay concert video and the millions of memes it spawned.
Think about it. The pop Song of the Summer is the one thing that just about everyone consumes, the piece of media that breaks through the almost impenetrable algorithm-driven compartments we now occupy as viewers and listeners. It often takes a megastar to do it, but Taylor is laying low after a historic tour, Beyonce is on the road, Gaga’s album came out too early to qualify, etc. A breakthrough artist can claim the spot as well (see Sabrina Carpenter and Shaboozey), but it just hasn’t happened yet. And it’s getting late. The Song of the Summer is usually something you bump for weeks, a tune that becomes a family member for a few months and attaches itself to memories.
I’m not as cynical as the WSJ and Business Insider and think that “Golden,” a track from the Netflix movie “KPop Demon Hunters” is a solid contender. I’m not hearing it at the grocery store yet, but it has made appearances at pool parties and rec league swim meets, which is suburban-coded for successful. Nonetheless, it’s not yet as dominant as “Espresso” was last year. Likewise, Justin Bieber’s “Daisies” is being tossed around as a possibility, and while it hasn’t been out long enough to be ubiquitous, who knows? Maybe it can make up for lost time. But as of now, I’ve heard it once and couldn’t hum it back for you.
None of them comes close to the sheer cultural dominance of the Coldplay vid. The Coldplay kiss cam cheater reveal was the dopamine hit we were all seeking, and it delivered. It served schadenfreude - a one-percenter getting caught red-handed. It spawned essays on surveillance culture in the digital age. And in an age when it seems like shitty people are getting away with doing increasingly shitty things with no repercussions, the Astronomer couple were the shady folks who got their comeuppance in the most public way possible. Chris Martin’s awkwardly perfect reaction to the pair’s quick, um, uncoupling upon being caught - and the sheer balls to be cheating at an arena concert, hardly a private affair - gave us permission to find the whole thing funny, even if it had deeply serious repercussions. (Although with the absolute genius move that was hiring Gwyneth Paltrow as a “very temporary spokesperson,” maybe Astronomer won’t be so bad off after all?) The public sphere sprang into action when the kiss can footage went viral.
What does it mean that the song of the summer isn’t song at all? I’m not convinced that the desert of pop hits this summer means anything dire about pop in the long term. I certainly don’t think it means nearly as much about pop artists as it does about how, or even if, massive swaths of the population can agree that a particular product is worthy of our collective attention, and what that thing might be.
On the plus side, it may point to a vacuum of sorts waiting to be filled by a new pop sensation who can rise to the challenge and feed us a catchy-ass smash hit. I know who my candidates are. I’ve been bumping Cain Culto since March, whose deep cut “Dopamine Dream” is as soaring and summery a song as I’ve heard. Never mind that “Dopamine Dream” is a couple of years old. Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer” wasn’t new when it became a smash, and Cain Culto is a rising artist riding the wave of a viral hit with “KFC Santería” this past spring. “KFC” is a total banger and a creative masterpiece. It’s not at all uncommon for breakout stars to re-release tunes that never got the audience they deserved before. And Culto’s back catalogue is a damn museum of bangers.
I’m also recently obsessed with “Cunt” by Flyana Boss. For that matter, I’m obsessed with Flyana Boss in general. Will a song called “Cunt” be the breakout hit of the summer? I don’t know, but as someone who is committed to being as feral as possible while the temps rise, I’m making it my theme song and adding it to the Cunt Playlist, which also includes Sophie Hunter’s fantastic track named - you guessed it - “Cunt.”
But that’s another article altogether.
In the meantime, the summer smash hits were a meme and, coming in second, a KPop movie soundtrack by a band that doesn’t officially exist. Whatever’s going on, culture is meeting us where we are.