From Tyler, The Creator to CMAT: Euronews Culture's Songs of the Summer 2025
This time last year, we had Sabrina Carpenter's 'Espresso', Kendrick Lamar's 'Not Like Us', and the entirety of Charli XCX's 'Brat'.
No such luck in 2025 - with a lot charting songs still being 2024 hits, like Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars' 'Die With A Smile', Chappell Roan's 'Pink Pony Club' and Kendrick Lamar's 'Luther'.
So, where's this year's undeniable, culture dominating, consensus favourite Song of the Summer?
The Euronews Culture team got fed up of waiting for a common consent and decided to share their picks for the tracks that should be under consideration for the hit song of the Summer. Here goes...
Tyler, The Creator – 'Big Poe'
Tyler, The Creator announced his ninth studio album, 'Don't Tap The Glass', on 18 July and released it three days later, making it the Summer surprise we didn't know we so desperately needed. And compared to last year's 'Chromakopia', this is a change of pace.
The soul searching of 2024 is replaced by a taut, 28-minute long collection of IDGAF dance bops. There are some great tunes, including 'Don't You Worry Baby', 'I'll Take Care Of You', 'Ring Ring Ring' and 'Sucka Free'.
However, for my money, the standout is opener 'Big Poe' - and my pick of the Song of the Summer 2025.
It opens with Tyler delivering a set of instructions to the listener: "Number one, body movement - no sitting still / Number two, only speak in glory - leave your baggage at home / Number three, don't tap the glass".
The track then transitions to the sample of 'Roked' by Shye Ben Tzur and Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, followed up by some glorious Busta Rhymes sampling. And just like that, we're off to the races. Also featuring Pharrell Williams, Tyler's kinetic track has infectious boom bap beat and synth funk to spare, and sets the tone of the album rather perfectly.
'Don't Tap The Glass' may not be an immediate stone cold classic like 'Chromakopia', but its opening track certainly made my Summer of 2025 all about not sitting still and wanting to hit the dancefloor. DM
Joé Dwèt Filé & Burna Boy - '4 Kampé II'
Raise your hand if you're the kind of person who stops dancing in the middle of the club to google lyrics in the hopes of finding a song's title. Yes, I know that Shazam exists, but I am who I am.
This is exactly what I did when I first heard Joé Dwèt Filé's '4 Kampé' in late June. The French-Haitian singer, known for his heavy Afro-Caribbean influences, released the song as a single in October 2024. A cover from a Haitian classic, it quickly found great success and crossed borders through Tik Tok. Even Madonna posted a video of herself dancing to the beat.
In March 2025, Joé Dwèt Filé hit even harder by releasing a remix, '4 Kampé II', with Nigerian star Burna Boy. The new version has been played over 25 million times on Spotify. The artists performed the song live during Burna Boy's April concert in the Stade de France, in front of a deliriously hyped crowd.
With '4 Kampé II', Joé Dwèt Filé initiates Burna Boy to kompa, a Haitian merengue dance and music genre. The two singers mix French, English and Haitian Creole in this ode to success, ambition and self-confidence. The result is a joyful fusion of Nigerian and Haitian cultures.
And trust me when I say that you won't be able to get enough of the song's addictive 'da-da-da"s and jubilant outro. By the end of the summer, you'll hopefully be able to sway your hips like a pro kompa dancer. SM
CMAT - 'Take A Sexy Picture Of Me'
I first listened to Irish singer-songwriter CMAT's Take A Sexy Picture Of Me while on my way to a party.
Strutting through the late afternoon sunshine, touching up my lipstick in a car window reflection, it's the kind of song that floods you with sass.
My favourite summer tunes often start this way, playing at just the right moment to capture the season's solitary moments of calm and optimism. This time, it's not just personal.
After being released in May, the song's catchy hook "I did the butcher, I did the baker" took off on TikTok, complete with a viral dance routine. If you watch enough of these, it will start to haunt you, then irritate you, like a little chipmunk nibbling away at your temporal lobe. But if you listen to the full song - or even better, watch CMAT's live performances of it - its country-infused glam is an instant mood lifter; a sonic equivalent of slipping off a heavy cardigan and feeling the sun's warmth on your skin.
Without a doubt, it should be this year's Song of the Summer. AB
Kokoroko - 'Da Du Dah'
With the weather in London being especially good this year, I've been spending a lot of the long evenings cycling around the city, exploring, headphones on, music blasting, pretending I'm in a low-budget music video... And lately, the song I keep coming back to is 'Da Du Dah' by the London-based collective Kokoroko, from their newly released album 'Tuff Times Never Last'.
The whole project is a delightful mix of Afro-jazz, funk, soul and gospel goodness, but this track in particular has legitimately cast a spell on me. The bassline is one of the funkiest I've heard all year and the joyous horns and catchy vocal lines bounce off each other in a playful call-and-response that alters my brain chemistry in the best possible way.
The accompanying music video for the song, directed by the supremely talented Akinola Davies Jr., is equally charming - offering a slice-of-life glimpse of London while imagining the seven-piece band as kids wandering the streets - all shot on gorgeous 35mm film.
I can't get the track out of my head. And honestly? I'm more than ok with that. TF
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