The best songs of summer 2023

Now that the British summer is well and truly upon us, with all its overexcitable, slightly feral energy, it’s time to find its perfect soundtrack. Summer anthems transcend genre and style – in recent years they have included Neil Diamond’s 1969 track “Sweet Caroline”, as an ode to England’s football team for the Euros in 2021; Luis Fonsi’s “Despacito” as an ode to the people of 2017 who liked to blast music from their open car windows; and Major Lazer’s “Lean On”, an ode to 2015’s Glastonbury attendees who had just discovered how to make compilation videos on Instagram. The song of the summer, though, always has a few characteristics: memorable, singable and with a big, bad beat.

This year, there’s no big sporting event to propel things (as it did in 2010 with Shakira’s “Waka Waka”) and no huge breakthrough artist to keep an eye on (last year, nobody could get enough of Eliza Rose’s “B.O.T.A”. Yet there is many a summer bop to choose from, and many a melody to get stuck in your head. These are the top contenders.

“Padam Padam” – Kylie Minogue

Kylie is an unassuming kind of superstar – she is not, unlike her contemporary Madonna, worried about remaining relevant, being down with the kids or preserving her icon status at all costs. Perhaps this is why she has managed to produce the catchiest bop of the year. “Padam Padam”, now a TikTok sensation and a firm fave for girlies and gays everywhere, is an intoxicating vintage dance track riffing on Edith Piaf – easily choreo’d, visually embodied in red pleather and with a sexy mid-tempo that somehow manages to be inherently camp, “Padam” is not only for this summer but many to come.

“Who Told You” – J Hus feat. Drake

Arguably the top contender for song of the summer is J Hus with “Who Told You” (feat. Drake), released today. With an addictive, playful flow – “Who told you bad man don’t dance?” – the London rapper nails a vibe that incorporates the most important elements of summer living: feeling hot (as in temperature), looking hot (as in hot girl summer) and reckless abandon. Come for the relaxed bubble of the beat, stay for Drake saying “backside” in an almost-convincing Jamaican accent.

“That! Feels Good!” – Jessie Ware

In recent years, Jessie Ware has become known for more than just her music. As well as purveyor of slick disco-R&B, she is a podcast host (of the food-based chat show Table Manners) and full-time gay icon. Now, though, she reminds us that music is really what she’s made of. “That! Feels Good!”, the title track from her most recent album, is a storming funk banger with an electrifying bassline that’s packed with sexy whispered vocals and energising brass riffs – and, though it’s timeless in style, screams “summer” as much as it shouts “pleasure”.

“Lipstick Lover” – Janelle Monáe

With her new album The Age of Pleasure, Janelle Monáe is unapologetically sexual. Lead single “Lipstick Lover” is no exception – accompanied by a video showing a bacchanal-looking pool party, in which Monáe slowly sways her hips flanked by women in soaking-wet T-shirts, the song swaggers through images of encounters in darkened rooms, all the while giving off an intensely summery vibe with its reggae beat and lazy brass.

“Tattoo” – Loreen

Loreen, Sweden’s two-time winner of the Eurovision Song Contest, has a knack for cutting through. Her 2012 winning entry “Euphoria” is one of the only Eurovision songs of recent years to make it into the mainstream; now, “Tattoo”, the winner of 2023’s contest, seems to be doing the same. The track has a passionate, tragic melody and accelerates like a heartbeat: it’s a classic in the Scandi sadbanger genre and, helmed by top diva Loreen, is as extra as it is addictive.

“Dance the Night” (from Barbie: The Album) – Dua Lipa

We’ve come to expect them from Dua Lipa: mid-tempo, disco-inflected pop songs that sound generic but gradually worm their way into your brain forever. “Dance the Night”, which is on Greta Gerwig’s Barbie soundtrack (Lipa appears in the film as one of the Barbies), is reminiscent of earlier Lipa hits – “Levitating” and “Physical” in particular – but when it works, it works. Barbie is sure to bring the summer a lot of sparkle, tinting everything pink for the whole of July – and “Dance the Night” only makes the plastic more fantastic.

“Flowers” – Miley Cyrus

Miley’s break-up anthem “Flowers” is already the song of 2023: it broke the record as the most streamed song on Spotify in its first week of release back in January, and has reached number one in 35 countries. Yet still it endures: a ballad lamenting the end of a relationship (presumably relating to Cyrus’s real marriage breakdown) with an impossibly catchy chorus espousing independence. With her signature growl, Cyrus celebrates all the ways she can look after herself in her newly single state: the sense of hope is infectious and this song feels like sashaying through the park on a sunny day.

“The Story of Us (Taylor’s Version)” – Taylor Swift

It would be unusual for a decade-old angsty pop song to become the buzz of the summer – but this one is by Taylor Swift, who is currently on the world’s most talked-about live tour and who is about to re-release the track as part of her re-record of the 2010 album Speak Now (on 9 July). Swift’s re-records are true to the originals but as she’s aged her voice has developed – for songs like “The Story of Us”, a bit more depth, a bit more husky rasp, can only add to their appeal. This is a classic tale of love gone wrong told with crashing drums and the kind of twanging guitars that we Brits might associate with an all-American suburban summer dream. While it may not be blasting from convertibles gliding down almost-melting tarmac, it will certainly be blasting in the ears of thousands of Swift fans who didn’t get enough the first time.