What Makes a Song of the Summer? Sarah Brindell, associate professor of songwriting, breaks down the DNA of summer hits and shares her top contenders for this years title.
By
Colette Greenstein
July 13, 2022
Beyonc 's latest single, Break My Soul, is an early contender for this years song of the summer.
Image by Nat Ch Villa/Wikimedia Commons
Crazy in Love. Despacito. Butter.
What makes a song a Song of the Summer? Is it the music? The lyrics? The emotions that the song evokes?
For me, it's always been the feeling, says Sarah Brindell, an associate professor in Berklee's Songwriting Department. The feeling is first and that's not something that we can define even with words. The most beautiful moments of your favorite movie and the part that makes you cry the most is usually when the words go away and there's only music, and then we're all crying. When there's words, we're listening and trying to be a part of the movie. As soon as the music swells, that's when everybody is crying.
Sarah Brindell
Image courtesy of the artist
A professional musician for more than 20 years, Brindell has shared the stage and studio with some of music's biggest stars, such as Grammy Award-winning artists Norah Jones and Carole King, and has released five records, including her most recent EP, 2021s Songs from the Heart. She was a finalist in Billboard's World Song Contest and the Song of the Year contest supporting VH1's Save the Music Foundation, and her songs have been featured on several television shows, including MTV's Made. Brindell and her husband recently founded a five-day songwriting and production workshop at the Alpha Institute in Kingston, Jamaica, which is set to launch in July of 2023.
We spoke to Brindell about what elements make a true song of summer. The interview has been condensed for clarity and length.
What do you think makes a song a song of the summer ? Are there specific elements that contribute to that? This is an interesting question. A song of the summer, I think, is a subjective term. In thinking about it, it has to have an element of nostalgia in it. I actually looked up every single song of the summer for the last 46 years. Insider put out a list of all the different songs that were picked by Billboard. I was looking through the list and I was thinking about it. When Doves Cry by Prince is on there. Every Breath You Take by the Police is on there. At first, I thought, Oh, maybe it's a fast tempo; maybe that's what has to be but not always. It needs to be upbeat but chill, and accessible across many different demographics; something that everybody can groove to or get into. I think that's really important. Elements of lyrics that are vulnerable or nostalgic or also anticipatory. I think summer is a lot about anticipation.
I would say my contenders for the song of the summer this year are As It Was by Harry Styles and About Damn Time by Lizzo. Disco is super cool right now. This is hilarious for me because I won't even tell you how many times disco has come back into style during my life. It really is back with a vengeance in the last couple of years. Listening to About Damn Time was a super kind of throwback, borrowing elements from disco. It also has that kind of chill-yet-up-tempo thing about it. It's got a celebrational vibe, which is also something that happens quite a bit in a song of the summer, even if its a celebration of pain or heartache. I think that there's some kind of element of we're celebrating a moment that we know is fleeting.
Several of the songs on the Billboard list of song of the summer candidates lean towards Top 40, pop, and contemporary hits. Are there specific genres of music that make them more likely to fit this description? I'm not sure that a little bit more niche styles may ever be included in that category if you're looking at Billboard. However, I think that songs cross genres and, as an instructor and an influencer in the songwriting world, I have a hard time continuing the conversation about genre because I feel like it really ties in with appropriation of race, of gender, of all these things. It's unfortunate to me that they're so tied in with each other, but they are. I'm actually looking to sort of move past the need for genre and the categorization of music even though I know that's not marketable. The trend anyway from my students and many people that I've spoken to is: We're trying to cross genres. We're trying to move past genres. We're trying to define something new that's more fluid and less attached to what it was before. Getting back to the days of Woodstock 1969, when there were all different kinds of artists on that stage, all different races, and it kind of just seems to me like, that's what I want it to be, so if I'm an influencer in all of this, it's hard for me to speak to genre right now.
With that in mind, what do you think of Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill having a resurgence, and why do you think it's resonating with so many different people? It helps that it came back on Stranger Things. Now we have this accessibility towards it that we didn't before because it's been synced with that show. The fact that now all of the audience of Stranger Things is also listening to it and it's in association with a very crazy theme in the show that was really exciting, that's of course going to be a bump in the audience. Now there's a new generation that has never heard that song before, along with an older generation that is feeling nostalgic about that song because they remember when it came out. That's pretty fun and that reaches a larger audience of course. Talk about anticipating. You look up the lyrics and there's all kind
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
06/12/2025
In a live broadcast from the Reagan National Defense Forum, L3Harris Chair and CEO Christopher Kubasik joined Morgan Brennan on CNBCs Closing Bell: Overtime. Ku...
06/12/2025
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. A new survey from Pixitmedia by Datacore revealed a major shift in the Media & Entertainment industry in media archiving, with 85% of resp...
06/12/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. LiveU has announced that the national public broadcaster Czech Television has completed one of the largest LiveU live production deployments fo...
06/12/2025
NEW YORK The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) presented the Excellence in Production Technology Emmy Award to NASA+ and Dr. Tom Leight...
05/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nati...
05/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Veritone's Sean King on the Power of Mining Video, Audio DataThe company's Data Refinery offers users total control and governance over da...
05/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: Inside the Nashville Predators' Unified, Flexible, Sca...
05/12/2025
Netflix Reaches Agreement To Acquire Warner Bros. Following Planned WBD SplitThe deal does not include WBDs sports assets like TNT Sports (US, UK, LatAm), Euros...
05/12/2025
FOX Sports Returns to Indianapolis for Primetime Broadcast of Big Ten Championsh...
05/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Digital Engagement & Monetization Workshop Tackles the ...
05/12/2025
Atlanta United Lights Up New Emory Healthcare Studio With First Live Broadcast f...
05/12/2025
As Messi Takes the Pitch, MLS, Apple, NEP Roll Out Largest MLS Cup Production Ev...
05/12/2025
ESPN Enters College Football's Most Intense Month With Elevated Workflows fo...
05/12/2025
It's about that time! Awards season is in full swing, and the Film Independe...
05/12/2025
Every year, Spotify Wrapped offers a personalized look back at the audio that defined your year. It's a snapshot of your listening habits, designed to tell ...
05/12/2025
In 2025, Spotify's EQUAL, GLOW, and RADAR programs celebrated women, LGBTQIA , and emerging artists who turned moments into milestones. From breaking record...
05/12/2025
In our latest blog, we explain how Wi-Fi 7 rollouts can drive consumer loyalty with value-add services such as consumer cybersecurity. We also explore how this ...
05/12/2025
LOS ANGELES Netflix announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Nielsens Gracenote has launched Gracenote Content Connect, a new ad platform that provides agencies, brands, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-si...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK In an most important update to the workings of deal-based programmatic advertising, IAB Tech Lab has released version 1.0 of its Deals API for public c...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Pass the turkey. Pass the stuffing. Pass the cranberry sauce. All are common requests of Americans celebrating Thanksgiving Day with family and f...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Netflix announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has approved AT&T's $1.02 billion acquisition of spectrum from UScellular in a decision that was issued sho...
05/12/2025
The Best Coldplay Songs: 21 Tracks That Shoot for the Stars From Yellow to Viva La Vida, Fix You to Paradise, this playlist goes back to the start.
December ...
05/12/2025
Zafris Lecture Series Brings Nabil Ayers to Berklee The 32nd annual James G. Zafris Distinguished Lecture series was held on Thursday, November 13, with guest...
05/12/2025
Introducing New Perks to Help You Get Even More from LinkedIn Premium Published on Dec 5, 2025 Categories: Company News, Product News
LinkedIn Corporate Co...
05/12/2025
Friday 5 December 2025
A new Game of Thrones Tale: Official trailer for Sky Exc...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Don Lee, Lee Jin-uk, and Lalisa Manobal to Star in Netflix Act...
05/12/2025
Tis the season of giving once again and this year we've taken our Give Back Fridays' concept and turned it on its head.
In the autumn we were approach...
05/12/2025
Brayden Gogis doesn't remember a time when he wasn't completely fixated on games in all forms. In preschool, when they asked us to dress up as what we ...
05/12/2025
The Grinch steals the spotlight as the theme for The Late Late Toy Show 2025
Tune in tonight at 9:35pm on RT One and worldwide on RT Player
#LateLateToyShow...
05/12/2025
RT Announces New Presenters of Flagship News Programmes
New RT Six One News co-presenter Tommy Meskill
Sarah McInerney & Justin McCarthy join Morning Ir...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & ...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir AJA Ki Pro Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & just:in linux
More Details:Starting with version 5.5, both just:in mac pro and just:in linux sol...
04/12/2025
Wangu Kanuri from Kenya and Godwin Asediba from Ghana are two of this years finalists for Thomsons Young Journalist of the Year Award. The pair are runners-up i...
04/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: ProximaVision's Claudio Lisman on Why Tethered Drones Could Be...
04/12/2025
SVG Campus Shot Callers: Imry Halevi, Senior Associate Director of Athletics, Co...
04/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: LiveU Lightweight Sports Production: A Step Change in Spor...
04/12/2025
London to Riyadh: DAZN brings the boxing glamour to new production levels for Be...
04/12/2025
Analysis: Paramount bets on the battering ram' with Champions League play By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 10:12
Print ...
04/12/2025
Space City Home Network Launches SCHN DTC App for Astros and RocketsThe Rockets and Astros were previously the lone NBA and MLB teams without a DTC appBy Jason...
04/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Content Workflows Workshop Spotlights Evolution of Spor...
04/12/2025
New Sponsor Spotlight: Geotech's Patrick Wambold On the Unreal Engine Revolu...
04/12/2025
Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nationally and RegionallyBy Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, December 4, 2025 - 1:52 pm
Print This Sto...
04/12/2025
(L-R) Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Mohammadreza Eyni, Sara Khaki, and Judith Helfand att...
04/12/2025
SBS launches Future Frames initiative to support emerging First Nations video ed...
What Makes a Song of the Summer? Sarah Brindell, associate professor of songwriting, breaks down the DNA of summer hits and shares her top contenders for this years title.
