Image via Complex Original
“Can’t Feel My Face,” “Super Bass,” “Party Rock Anthem,” “Call Me Maybe”: Some songs are so massive that their mere mention can conjure up images of warm weather, barbecues, and beaches. But what songs will be imprinted on our memories of summer 2016?
Sure, it’s still spring now, but artists and labels don’t exactly release all their summer jams at once on June 21. In fact, it’s usually songs that have been around for months that grow to define the season. So there’s a good chance you may have already heard the song of summer 2016. Here are a few (very) early predictions for what song may dominate the months ahead based on songs released in 2016.
Fat Joe and Remy Ma f/ French Montana “All the Way Up”
Fat Joe and Remy Ma ran summer 2004 with Terror Squad’s chart-topping smash “Lean Back,” and the Bronx pair’s recent reunion may bring them both back to summer jam glory. The Edsclusive-produced lead single from the duo’s upcoming collaborative album, Plata O Plomo, is already one of the hottest records out of New York in recent memory, with a horn loop-driven beat that sounds substantially more New York than Desiigner’s Atlanta-inspired “Panda.” And a rumored appearance from Jay Z on an upcoming “All the Way Up” remix may soon cement the song as an NYC anthem to remember.
Beyoncé “Sorry”
Perhaps no song on Lemonade mixes the sweet and sour emotions of Beyoncé’s new album more evenly than “Sorry,” which follows the angriest tracks with a world-weary celebration. The “Headed to this club, I ain’t thinkin’ ‘bout you” anthem functions like a mellower update of “Freakum Dress,” co-produced by MeLo-X, Hit-Boy, and Beyoncé herself, among others. And with an eye-catching video featuring Serena Williams and the already headline-grabbing lyric about “Becky with the good hair,” it’s likely to be a song that keeps Lemonade in rotation all summer.
Rihanna “Kiss It Better”
During the long wait for Rihanna’s latest album ANTI, producer Glass John took to Twitter in frustration, venting that a future smash he worked on, “Kiss It Better,” still hadn’t been released, and even leaking a snippet of the song. All’s well that ends well, however, with ANTI and its lead single “Work” topping the charts in early 2016, and “Kiss It Better” now positioned to follow it up on pop radio. A smoldering power ballad with a pulsing beat and soaring guitar leads, “Kiss It Better” is the kind of steamy slow jam that can suit the summer as well as any uptempo track.
Drake f/ WizKid and Kyla “One Dance”
Drake promised that VIEWS would run the summer on the album’s first street single, “Summer Sixteen,” earlier this year. But of the songs released from the album in advance, “One Dance” featuring Nigerian star WizKid and British singer Kyla Reid seems most likely to be all over the charts for the next few months. With a danceable sound indebted to the Afrobeat scene WizKid rose out of, “One Dance” continues in the tradition of previous Drake summer jams like “Find Your Love” and “Hotline Bling” that have allowed Drizzy to temper his singing voice with a Caribbean lilt.
Rae Sremmurd “Look Alive”
2015’s SremmLife was more like a greatest hits collection than a debut album, with the upstart Mississippi duo Rae Sremmurd scoring a total of five radio singles in an era when even superstars rarely get that many hits out of one album. So the expectations are high for SremmLife 2, which got off to a slow start with the lead single “By Chance.” Now that the album has been given a late June release date, however, everyone’s ready for a summer of Sremmurd, and the new single “Look Alive” has one of those irresistible singsong Swae Lee hooks that could keep the group’s hit parade going.
Future “Wicked”
Future releases music at such a rapid clip that it can sometimes be hard for radio and fans alike to keep up with the flood of new material. In fact, some of his signature mixtape songs like “Commas” and “March Madness” didn’t peak in popularity until after he’d already moved on to the next project. The January mixtape Purple Reign only got to breathe for 20 days before the chart-topping retail album EVOL arrived. But instead of getting lost in the shuffle, “Wicked” has emerged as a club favorite from Purple Reign. In April, Future performed the track on the Tonight Show, and quietly added “Wicked” to the EVOL tracklist on streaming services.
Kanye West f/ Rihanna and Swizz Beatz “Famous”
“Famous” dominated headlines when The Life Of Pablo was released in February, largely for a certain lyric referencing the magical night in 2009 that he somehow gifted fame to a young woman who’d already sold about 7 million albums. But with no official single release at first, it took a couple months for “Famous” to also emerge as the album’s first chart hit (not counting the remixed inclusion of Desiigner’s “Panda”). Perhaps all the Swift-related media attention helped, or perhaps it was the Rihanna hook, the club-friendly Swizz ad-libs, and the sample of Sister Nancy’s 1982 reggae classic “Bam Bam” that gave the song its momentum.
Young Thug “Digits”
After breaking out with a series of radio hits in 2014, all eyes have remained on Young Thug’s recent mixtapes. But aside from “Best Friend,” there have been few hits, and if recent interviews with Thug and his 300 Entertainment label boss Lyor Cohen are any indication, the pressure is on to deliver major singles for his highly anticipated Hy!£UN35 album. And the recent conclusion of the Slime Season mixtape series set that. “The stuff we have on SS3 is more formal,” producer London On Da Track recently told The Fader. “Let’s take it straight to the club, let’s put it on the Hot 100.” And it worked, with “Digits” debuting on the Hot 100 the week after the mixtape’s March release, and a new version featuring a guest verse by Meek Mill following in April.
A$AP Ferg f/ Missy Elliott “Strive”
The A$AP Mob has always had a flair for connecting the dots between hip hop’s past and present, and A$AP Ferg has been especially astute at that, with projects that place hall of famers like Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, B-Real, Twista, and Chuck D in a modern context. But perhaps his greatest A&R flourish to date is Always Strive And Prosper’s second single, which features Missy Elliott, a DJ Mustard beat that recalls ’90s house music, and an uplifting lyric that elevates “Strive” to something more than just a nostalgic club banger.