David Remnick: This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Remnick. It is time for the annual ritual of summer that keeps the world turning on its axis, picking the Song of the Summer. You're going to be relieved to know that I don't make this choice myself. I have rankled two of the New Yorker's great music critics, Amanda Petrusich and Kelefa Sanneh. Amanda, what does the Song of the Summer even mean? We never say Song of the Winter, Song of the Fall.

Amanda Petrusich: Right. Yes, it's a great question. I think it is not so much a qualitative judgment as simply whatever jam is the most ubiquitous. What is the song that you hear pumping out of cars with their windows down as they drive by? Also, what is the song that maybe encapsulates in a certain way, I don't know, a feeling of freedom and fun and looseness.

David Remnick: It's not a commercial thing. It's not what sells the most?

Amanda Petrusich: No, I don't think so.

Kelefa Sanneh: There's this idea that diseases spread more in the winter. Not because of the cold, but because we're all indoors sharing germs. Maybe with songs it's like the opposite. Maybe songs spread a little more during the summer because we're all together, the windows are open. The Song of the Summer, one way of thinking about it is a song that you hear involuntarily, right? This isn't the song that you play the most. It's the song you hear everyone else listening to.

Amanda Petrusich: Yes.

David Remnick: This is the epidemiological theory of music.

Amanda Petrusich: Yes.

David Remnick: Kay, why don't you start us off? What's your big candidate?

Kelefa Sanneh: Well, one candidate I think we have to talk about is Shaboozey. He's an interesting guy. He's the child of Nigerian immigrants, and he was on the Beyonce album earlier this year, which was like a country album. He has a bona fide country hit this summer, a song called-- a bar song- Tipsy. It's become a huge pop hit, but also a huge country hit. As we speak, it is the reigning three-week-long champion on the country airplay chart, the most-played song on country radio. There's been a lot of talk about, "Oh, is country radio going to play Beyonce?" Iit's funny that the answer to that question is, "Well, no, but it'll play her Nigerian American collaborator, Shaboozey, who's at the top of the chart."

[MUSIC -- Shaboozey -- Tipsy]

Shaboozey: Here comes the two to the three to the four,

When it's last call, and they kick us out the door

It's getting kinda late, but the ladies want some more o

Oh, my, good Lord, tell them drink some more.

Someone pour me up a double shot of whiskey.

They know me and Jack Daniels got a history

There's a party downtown near Fifth Street.

Everybody's at the bar getting tipsy.

Someone pour me up a double shot of whiskey.

They know me and Jack Daniels got a history.

David Remnick: Fantastic.

Kelefa Sanneh: One thing that a Song of the Summer might be is a song that sounds maybe a little bit like a novelty song. We don't know, but it's a guy that most people hadn't heard of before. It's a remake of an older hit, and so we don't know what the future may hold, but for this moment, this is like Shabuzi summer maybe.

David Remnick: You think he's got a future?

Kelefa Sanneh: I'm terrible at predicting that. If I was good at predicting that, to be frank with you, David, I would quit this job and get a much better-paying job.

David Remnick: [laughs]

Amanda Petrusich: [laughs]

David Remnick: Amanda, what do you think of Shaboozey, not Kay's comment on the pay business?

Amanda Petrusich: Right, yes, the future of Shaboozey? Well, first of all, I will say it's such a Kay pick. It makes no sense on paper, but is nonetheless sort of intoxicating. I am feeling a little one-hit wonder from Shaboozey. Maybe it's the synchronicity of the fact that his name has the word boozy in it, and the song is about getting twisted, but it's a really fun summer song. I do like it.

David Remnick: Amanda, now your turn. What's your choice for the summer? What lit you up?

Amanda Petrusich: My first pick is Sabrina Carpenter's Espresso. Sabrina Carpenter, 25-year-old former Disney Channel star. It's got this really rubbery, buoyant Italo disco melody, but I think it's Song of the Summer material because it's funny. The lyrics are incredibly playful and bizarre, and they work out of context in a really cool way, which is, I think, increasingly essential in our sort of meme-hungry world.

[MUSIC -- Sabrina Carpenter -- Espresso]

Sabrina Carpenter: Too bad your ex don't do it for ya

Walked in and dream-came-trued it for ya

Soft skin and I perfumed it for ya (yes)

I know I Mountain Dew it for ya (yes)

That morning coffee, brewed it for ya (yes)

One touch and I brand-newed it for ya

Amanda Petrusich: Stupid.

Sabrina Carpenter: Now he's thinkin' 'bout me every night, oh

Is it that sweet?

David Remnick: We've got Kay dancing in the studio to this, so you're obviously not against this choice.

Kelefa Sanneh: No. I'm a big fan of Sabrina Carpenter. Also a big fan of coffee. [laughs]

Amanda Petrusich: [laughs] I'm going to be bold and say that's that 'me espresso' is actually an astounding feat of lyricism. I mean, she's essentially saying, I am so adorable and so enchanting, so desirable, you will never sleep again. I know. I Mountain Dew it for you.

David Remnick: [laughs]

Amanda Petrusich: I'm sorry, but that is a perfect pop lyric.

David Remnick: It pretty much is.

Amanda Petrusich: I think even the moment in the chorus where she says, 'isn't that sweet? I guess so,' is so great. I think the 'I guess so' there is just absolutely skewering stone cold. She could take it or leave it, and who doesn't want to bring that kind of energy into their summer?

David Remnick: Kay, you get another shot, a second choice.

Kelefa Sanneh: Here's a song that I haven't seen on a ton of Song of the Summer lists, but I think it deserves a spot. Carol G, the Colombian pop star, who's one of the biggest recording artists in the hemisphere, has a song called Cientes tu Obero Conacito, which is basically If I Had Met You Before. This song has more of a Dominican Republic feel. It's kind of a merengue with a little bit of mambo, and it's been stuck in my head for much of the summer. I think that's one pretty good requirement for a Song of the Summer.

[MUSIC -- Carol G -- Cientes tu Obero Conacito]

Kelefa Sanneh: Oh, we got a little shimmy out of you on that one, David.

David Remnick: You did.

Kelefa Sanneh: I love to see that.

David Remnick: Amanda's head's bopping along-

Kelefa Sanneh: I love that.

David Remnick: -so she's not objecting too hard?

Amanda Petrusich: No, not at all. Kay actually turned me onto the song. I think it is a total jam.

Kelefa Sanneh: It's a little bit reminiscent of Despecha, the Rosalia song from two years ago, which was a similar kind of merengue crossover move. It's had a huge audience, one of the biggest Latin songs of the year. The story of American music increasingly is the story of Latin music, and so I think this deserves a place in any discussion. Song of the Summer David Remnick: Amanda, you got a second choice?

Amanda Petrusich: My second pick is Charlie XCX's 360, which was the second single from Brat, her new record.

[MUSIC -- Charlie XCX -- 360]

Charlie XCX: Yeah, 360.

When you're in the mirror do you like what you see?

When you're in the mirror, you're just looking at me

I'm everywhere. I'm so Julia.

Oh, oh, oh, ah, ah.

When you're in the party bumping that beat.

666 with a princess streak,

I'm everywhere I'm so Julia.

Amanda Petrusich: Charlie XCX is a British hyper-pop star singer. She's been making music for over a decade, and as a cultural object, I think Brat might be her masterwork. Hyperpop is almost exactly what it sounds like: a subgenre of pop that's very synthy, very compressed, very self-referential, sort of winking, with short songs and big hooks. Brat, the record as a lifestyle, as a mood, as a vibe, just felt to me, genuinely inescapable this summer, 360, I think, is the best song on the album for me. The most fun part about it is that I could not even begin to truly define the brat aesthetic in any kind of useful or legible way. I think the whole thing is if you know, you know, or as Charlie herself would say, "I'm your favorite reference, baby."

David Remnick: Kay, how you feeling about the brat aesthetic this summer?

Kelefa Sanneh: Oh, I couldn't love it more, but it's also an interesting example of how there are different types of popularity. Right. If you go by the numbers, streaming numbers, whatever, this is the least popular of the four songs that we've talked about.

David Remnick: No, really?

Amanda Petrusich: Yes.

Kelefa Sanneh: In terms of the discourse, and maybe the discourse among people like us, it's totally inescapable.

David Remnick: Right because it's entered the post-Biden Kamala Harris moment.

Kelefa Sanneh: What she does is very cerebral, right? She's making pop music that's kind of about pop. There's this moment in the song where she sings 'I'm so Julia,' which is a reference to Julia Fox, we think, but then Julia Louis Dreyfus makes this TikTok video where she's singing along to that part. The Charlie world is just super fun.

David Remnick: Everybody's in on it. Ok, now we come to the decisive, crucial moment. We have four songs out on the table. Amanda, what's your choice for song of the summer?

Amanda Petrusich: I think there's no escaping it. We're living in brat Summer. I'm sorry. Charlie famously tweeted, 'Kamala is brat,' which then that was the moment for me where I think, I thought, this is it. This is the jam of 2024. That, to me, supersedes wherever she landed on the charts. That is the kind of cultural enormity that, to me, is song of the summer.

David Remnick: Sir?

Kelefa Sanneh: I'm not sure that political co-option helps or hurts-

[laughter]

Kelefa Sanneh: -a case for Song of the Summer. You know, it's funny, like the Song of the Summer, there's this idea that it's become somehow a more prestigious category. As someone who has mixed feelings about prestige, I gotta go with Shaboozey.

David Remnick: I have to say, Amanda, I don't want to break your heart. I really don't, but the Shaboozey song is so out of left field. It's such a genre-breaker. It's fantastic. It was the most surprising song to me, and I kind of love it.

Kelefa Sanneh: As goes David Remnick, so goes the nation.

David Remnick: [laughs]

Amanda Petrusich: Oh, Lord.

David Remnick: Shaboozey summer.

Amanda Petrusich: If I may quote Shaboozey on this one.

David Remnick: Shaboozey summer. Amanda Petrusich, Kelefa Sanneh, pleasure as always. You got work to do.

Amanda Petrusich: Thank you.

David Remnick: Thank you. Back to your desks.

Kelefa Sanneh: See you next summer.

David Remnick: All right, this is The New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Remnick. Thanks for joining us. Please join us next time.

Shaboozey: [sings] My baby want a Birkin, she's been tellin' me all night long

Gasoline and groceries, the list goes on and on.

This 9 to 5 ain't workin', why the hell do I work so hard?

I can't worry 'bout my problems, I can't take 'em when I'm gone.

Uh one, here comes the two to the three to the four

Tell 'em bring another out, we need plenty more

Two steppin' on the table, she don't need a dancefloor

Oh my, good Lord, Someone pour me up a double shot of whiskey

They know me and Jack Daniels got a history

There's a party downtown near Fifth Street

Everybody at the party getting tipsy.

 

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