The heat is on: how to succeed the crush of the summer | The music

AAs the days lengthen, a strange phenomenon occurs. Everything you do becomes a soundtrack with a seemingly ubiquitous melody, an incessant rhythm. You could be proud of not knowing what it is, but it will prevail anyway. This is the song of the summer.

In 2013, it was the never-ending funk of Daft Punk's Get Lucky. In 2003, Beyoncé was inevitably crazy in love with Jay-Z; Mambo No 5. Last year, at least in the United Kingdom, there was a three-way link between Calvin Harris and One Kiss of Dua Lipa, Drake's Plan and George Ezra's. s Shotgun. These three songs became the three biggest sellers of the year and, at least in the case of Ezra, resulted in large bookings of festival titles this summer.

In the UK, the biggest period of music sales was traditionally the pre-Christmas period, both for albums (as a gift) and for singles (in the Christmas title race # 1). But as we buy less music directly and we go behind the streaming, summer, which starts in April and ends in late September, is much more lucrative. "It's really difficult now to have a" new "Christmas success: Streaming models that make the playlists sound like a lot mean that the clbadics are really played," says Stuart Dredge, editor-in-chief of music publication Music Ally. "Who would be against Mariah?"

In broadcasting too, summer is considered a more exciting time of year for music. "For us at Radio 1, we always thought that summer songs were more important than Christmas songs," says Chris Price, head of Radio 1 and 1Xtra. "I think it's because the kids are the owners of the summer." The school and the university end, it's the festival season and the holiday season. The summer months have an intensity that the rest of the year lacks, and any record that can sum up this elusive feeling is destined to occupy a permanent place in the hearts of listeners.

So what can potential songwriters do to maximize their chances of success when mercury increases? An aura of excitement at the end of the term is a good start. "I'm constantly trying to capture the feelings of the summer," says Carly Rae Jepsen, of Call Me Maybe (song of summer 2012) sold to 18 million people. "I'll say:" The choir needs to be up, it's like you have the wind in your hair and you're on a rollercoaster and running up to the top of the mountain ! & # 39; And they say, 'OK … & # 39;

Yet, a summer melody does not have to be as light and catchy as Call Me Maybe. Billie Eilish's villain could not be darker, but it seems like he could get into the long shadows of heavy nights. "The key ingredient is a mbadive and simple chorus, easy to access in a field somewhere," says Beats host 1 Matt Wilkinson. "But it does not always have to be Good Vibrations or the most obvious summer song. It can be a dark song. "

The global appetite for Latin reggaeton music with salsa sounds insatiable, its rhythms are more than ever an badet. This year, Sech's Otro Trago and the Lunay Soltera should be the songs of the summer 2019 in Latin America; And as we Britons badociate Latin culture with the sun, this is the perfect time for them to cross the region.

Craig Kallman, CEO of Atlantic Records, produced I Like It, the summer success of Cardi B for 2018. He spent seven months thinking about "the rhythmic nature of dancing and dancing Latin music" to create something perfect , built around an excerpt from I Like It Like That by Pete Rodriguez, taken from his collection of 750,000 records. I like a lot. It seems that the accuracy of the summer success is still greater than most of the successes, including not only Cardi B, whose popularity and good will were at the rendezvous, but also Bad Bunny and J Balvin, two of the most big stars of Latin pop. "Creating one of these summer hymns was definitely an aspiration," says Kallman. "We think that it could be one of those discs played and heard in all the cars driving in the streets, in all the neighborhood parties, in all the barbecues in the yard, in all school clbades, and as a hymn for nightclubs. "

In 2016, another Latin success, Luis Fonsi's unstoppable Despacito, has become huge on the American continent, but has achieved its British success thanks to its exoticism in Spanish. listening to it was like spending a summer vacation of the mind. These discs are doubly powerful if you add something new, such as Las Ketchup's The Ketchup Song (Aserejé) and Los Del Rio's immortal Macarena, both responsible for the worldwide madness of dance in 2002 and 1995 respectively. . This year, Daddy Yankee's Con Calma, which interpolates the title Informer from the song of Canadian rapper Snow 1992, seems to tick this box.

"The songs that typically stand out as potential summer songs often have a novelty factor," says Jon Klein, who works on pop playlists at Apple Music. "But not necessarily in the wrong way. The novelty is that they have a unique sound and that they seem to emerge from nowhere. "

Timing is everything. Ezra 's Shotgun was supposed to be the single from his 2018 album Staying at Tamara, but his record company deliberately prevented him from performing as the summer approached, while words under the hot sun could make sense, even under unforeseeable British circumstances. skies. "We originally planned to release the single in January," says Ferdy Unger-Hamilton, Ezra & # 39; s A & R, "and I thought," It's impossible for us to do that. We received an excellent rating from Ed Sheeran: "Whore, why this album has not been released yet?" In the end, the song was broadcast on radio and television in May, while she was already the favorite of the fans. He spent 12 weeks in the top 3 and is still in the top 50 British. "There is no perverse, twisted marketing engineering," says Unger-Hamilton. "We did not buy a campaign with a solar lotion company or anything. He was the right artist for the right campaign at the right time. "

Ezra is an established artist with a legion of listeners ready to go through his tales of the popular pop-year. if you are a newer artist, it may be profitable to release your offer for summer ubiquity a little earlier. "We are planning constantly," says Radio 1 and 1Xtra's Price 1 music policy. "We may be working in three to six months."

For the success of streaming, it also gives listeners a longer time. "If it's a new artist or a new sound, it can take months to get to the top," says Klein. Lil Nas X's old street, a song that most commentators believe could be the final song this summer, was first released in December. He found his marks by jumping on savvy hashtags on Gen-Z's TikTok video app, tapped into two new trends (Country and Trap) and it's really prevalent in the UK after Billy Ray Cyrus appeared on a remix to make a grunt. Fendi sports bras. "It will be the festival song this year," says Wilkinson. "In the campgrounds, people will start singing at 6 in the morning."

Could a changing pop landscape possibly undermine the final song of the summer? With streaming and social media leveling the landscape, we will probably have several years, like 2018, where no song dominates. This fragmentation of our collective cultural experience prompted Rolling Stone to declare that the summer song no longer existed, instead of replacing it with a playlist of songs favored by different demographics.

This is partly because the radio can not necessarily make or break a song as it could 20 years ago. The process has become much more fragmented and adding your song to the good streaming playlist can be just as important. "Before, I think you could design it: good artist, good song, good support, good timing, everything else," says Zane Lowe, Creative Director of Global Music at Apple Music. "Now, with streaming, there is no guarantee. Even the greatest artists can now come back with a song that is written on paper, and when you hear it, you think it's a no-brainer. But then, it's like, "Why is he sitting at No. 6 on the chart?"

The final ingredient is therefore a kind of alchemy. "We really did not know it!" Says Jepsen about his global megasmash. And despite months of hard work dedicated to Cardi's I Like It, Kallman could never be sure he was going to land. "I just felt we had something special and magical," he says. "You can never predict what will happen eventually."

So what will be the song – or rather the songs – of the summer this year? Behind the scenes, they will have been refined and prepared like so many beach bodies, but it will take much more than that, an ineffable magic, to make them really shine.

Chant of the summer 2019: the contenders

Meduza – Piece of your heart (feat Goodboys)

Combining a melody from David Guetta's previous summer hit with a chorus designed to be sung in a cheap swimsuit, this deep house is the 2019 hymn by the pool.

Blinkie – Little Love (Grace Tither feat)

Every summer, you need a totally generic and polished HD piano house track to record Love Island's hottest fixtures. It is the 2019 season, hoisted in the air by a piercing and catchy chorus. See also: Tiësto, Jonas Blue and the ritual of Rita Ora.

India Jordan – DNT STP MY LV

Intended to create a complete pandemonium in all summer festivals, this rhythmic dance floor is built around a sample of voices sung at Todd Edwards; pure UV radiation in the music.

Luca Hänni – She's got me

With his Reggaeton rhythm and Major Lazer-style sirens, the entry into Switzerland at Eurovision already invites tequila throwers with strangers – and his chorus of "perverse dance!

Lizzo – The truth hurts

Juice was the big single, but the Minneapolis rapper's song slowly lights up on everyone's summer playlists thanks to his constant punchlines and catchy vocals.

G-Eazy – West Coast (feat Blueface)

It's a dramatic twist between that, DaGaby Suge and YG's Go Loko, a slow rap track that lets you play with your car and pretend you're driving in Los Angeles while negotiating parking with a sofa. warehouse.

Stardust – Music sounds better with you

The 1998 summer smash has been terribly missing from streaming services and YouTube, but it will finally arrive on June 28 to fascinate a new generation with its Chaka Khan genius.

Dalex – Pa Mí (Remix with Rafa Pabön, Khea, Sech, Feid, Cazzu and Lenny Tavárez)

Well, it will not be a Despacito, but it's the hot Latino hit of the year, with an extremely sensual headline; taken from the album Climabad, whose title tells you exactly what it is for.

Steve Lacy – Playground

The way bbad slaps and resounding guitars combine in the first 20 seconds of this song is the most summery thing imaginable, and Lacy's falsetto voice continues to hold the clouds at bay.

Miley Cyrus – Partying in the Street (Swae Lee feat & Mike WiLL Made-It)

The time had come for a song by Miley Cyrus titled Party Up the Street to have verified Molly's name and featured LMFAO, but this slow-paced track is admirably restricted – you can feel the heat rising like tarmac evening. Ben Beaumont-Thomas