{"id":70531,"date":"2026-08-14T16:44:49","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/14\/do-charts-or-clubs-decide-what-rules-the-season\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T16:44:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:44:49","slug":"do-charts-or-clubs-decide-what-rules-the-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/14\/do-charts-or-clubs-decide-what-rules-the-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Charts or Clubs Decide What Rules the Season?"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\tDiamora Hunt didn\u2019t have to do much during the first stretch of her CultureCon Caf\u00e9 set in early June. Organizers for the event recruited the Los Angeles-based DJ, who performs as Rosegawd, to keep the room from feeling static. For a while, she played background tracks while guests mingled throughout Sincerely Yours, a Black-owned art gallery and club in downtown L.A. Once everyone seemed comfortable, Hunt found the perfect moment to turn up the heat.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe crowd\u2019s attention had been split between each other and Game Four of the NBA Finals, where the New York Knicks were rapidly rebounding from a 29-point deficit against the San Antonio Spurs. With less than two seconds left in the match, the Knicks took the lead. In time with the final buzzer, Hunt dropped \u201cSpend Dat,\u201d the Yung Miami<\/a> hit released in April. \u201cThat room erupted in a unison of happiness,\u201d Hunt tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cThey just took that moment to be talking about, \u2018Where are the scammers?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the weeks since, \u201cSpend Dat\u201d has surged to certified summer soundtrack status with a Number 17 peak on the Billboard Hot 100. The chart\u2019s top 10 has been consistently occupied by blockbuster hits from Ella Langley<\/a> (\u201cChoosin\u2019 Texas\u201d), Olivia Dean (\u201cMan I Need\u201d), Tame Impala (\u201cDracula\u201d), and more. But the charts and the clubs don\u2019t always agree on the song of the summer. Playing a song in a car or through a set of headphones counts as a single stream, but what about a track dropped in a room full of hundreds of sweaty bodies?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cA lot of people would consider it as what\u2019s charting the highest and what\u2019s being played most on the radio,\u201d says Jacob Carnes, better known in the club scene as Jacobdior. \u201cBut now that I DJ and I\u2019m out listening to music all the time, I feel like the song of the summer is what gets people moving. What song can you put on that makes the crowd go from zero to 100, everyone knows the words, and you just know it\u2019s a hit?\u201d This summer, he\u2019s had \u201cSpend Dat\u201d on his rotation alongside viral hits like Trim\u2019s \u201cCoconut Water\u201d and BabyChiefDoit<\/a>\u2019s \u201cGhetto Love Story,\u201d which only just entered the Hot 100 a few weeks ago, plus older tracks like Amerie\u2019s \u201c1 Thing\u201d and Kehlani\u2019s \u201cFolded.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\t\u201cRadio used to be able to tell you what to play in a sense of, \u2018Oh, this is what\u2019s hot.\u2019 You\u2019ll hear it enough. Either you like it or you don\u2019t,\u201d Hunt says. \u201cNow it does depend on [a DJs] own algorithm.\u201d She remembers when the gap between what dominated on air and outside didn\u2019t feel so wide. Around the time Hunt started DJing in 2017, Cardi B set the summer on fire with \u201cBodak Yellow.\u201d It was inescapable, the kind of hit that signaled a definitive shift. \u201cI could play that five times in a row and it would go up every single time,\u201d Hunt says. \u201cThere hasn\u2019t been a song that I could do that with since.\u201d Kendrick Lamar\u2019s \u201cNot Like Us\u201d might be the closest parallel \u2014 the rapper played it five times during his Los Angeles concert in 2024 and the single spent three weeks at Number One.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe summer of \u201cNot Like Us\u201d was also the summer of Sabrina Carpenter\u2019s Short n\u2019 Sweet <\/em>and Charli XCX\u2019s Brat<\/em>. Carpenter premiered \u201cEspresso\u201d at Coachella in April, while Charli previewed Brat <\/em>with \u201cVon Dutch\u201d in February. They arrived at the just right moment, growing right as the coat check at the club was obsolete once again. \u201cIf you want something to really live in the summer, you may want to drop it in the fall or those later winters,\u201d says DJ Miss Milan<\/a>, official DJ for Doechii. This strategy gives songs time to find an audience and take hold without being drowned out by an influx of summer releases. It worked like a charm for Ella Langley.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cChoosin\u2019 Texas\u201d made its Hot 100 debut in October 2025 before hitting Number One on Valentine\u2019s Day earlier this year. The breakup hit simmered to the top so slowly that many who aren\u2019t avid country listeners missed its ascent entirely \u2014 even the DJs who have their finger on the pulse. \u201cElla Langley is having a historic moment,\u201d Rebecca Black<\/a> says about the song, which has spent 15 weeks at the top of the chart. \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever listened to it once all the way through just because that\u2019s not my cup of tea.\u201d Black\u2019s music, like her upcoming album Age of the Exhibitionist, <\/em>out in September, leans into the kind of pop that permeates queer spaces, while her DJ sets are geared towards blending pop with electronic music and dance.<\/p>\n

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\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\t\u201cThere are so many spaces that exist now that can play exactly the kind of music that is \u2014 whether it\u2019s me or anybody else \u2014 that person\u2019s thing,\u201d Black says. \u201cYou can find that anywhere if you look hard enough. Some people just aren\u2019t interested in looking. They\u2019re happy to digest whatever is out there.\u201d Her songs of the summer have included tracks from Kim Petras\u2019 Detour<\/em>, plus an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink blend of Slayyyter<\/a>\u2019s \u201cCrank,\u201d Ninajirachi\u2019s \u201cFuck My Computer,\u201d and the Black Eyed Peas\u2019 \u201cBoom Boom Pow.\u201d She\u2019ll even throw in a crunchy remix of \u201cCrazy Frog,\u201d sometimes. \u201cWhen you\u2019re building a show, you only get that moment of hearing something for the first time once, so I\u2019m always trying to get back to that,\u201d Black says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBlack recently brought her eclectic mix to Day Trip Festival in LA, but made the executive decision to exclude a song other DJs latched onto this summer: Justin Bieber<\/a>\u2019s \u201cBeauty and a Beat.\u201d \u201cI think I heard literally every act before me play a remix of that song, and it did go off,\u201d she says. \u201cIt got to the point where I literally was like, \u2018OK, I\u2019m not even going to touch that because everybody\u2019s heard that so many times.\u2019 But maybe that is what makes it a song of the summer.\u201d The 14-year-old hit single surged back onto the Hot 100 at Number 26 following Bieber\u2019s headlining performance at Coachella<\/a> in April. He only sang along to a few seconds of the track during the YouTube portion of his set, but it was enough to revive the nostalgia in everyone watching who wanted more.<\/p>\n

\n\tBlack may have avoided it, but \u201cBeauty and a Beat\u201d has become a staple in the pop culture-heavy sets DJ Jeffrey Lyman has hosted with event organizer Club90s<\/a> this summer. The song is as well received at Heated Rivalry<\/a> <\/em>Night and Off Campus<\/a> <\/em>Night as it is at Bop to the Top, their recurring Disney Channel party. \u201cAs soon as those first few notes hit, the whole room erupts,\u201d Lyman says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis summer has been particularly nostalgia-heavy for Club90s, which launched an ambitious 20-date Michael Jackson<\/a> Night tour in July. They\u2019d tried to host parties dedicated to the King of Pop in the past, but struggled to fill the rooms. Even the first few weeks after the blockbuster biopic Michael <\/em>arrived were slow. \u201cI almost gave up,\u201d Lyman says. \u201cBut it takes a while for these things to simmer.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMichael <\/em>hit theaters in April. By June, it became the highest-grossing music biopic in history with more than $911.9 million at the global box office. Michael Jackson Night became a hit, too. \u201cYou could name \u2018Billie Jean\u2019 as a song of the summer, as well,\u201d Lyman says. \u201cThat\u2019s the pivotal MJ anthem that everyone is blasting and wants to hear.\u201d The track climbed to Number 17 on the Hot 100 more than four decades after its initial release. In this instance, cultural dominance blurred the lines between the charts and the clubs. Bieber and Jackson belong to a similar song of the summer category as Kate Bush\u2019s \u201cRunning Up That Hill,\u201d which dominated in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tStill, DJs can\u2019t spend each night living entirely in the past. There are only so many new memories that you can build from nostalgia. \u201cEspecially from a DJ standpoint, the song of the summer has always been somewhat of a community opinion,\u201d Milan says. Any summer of Drake can be cited as a perfect example. \u201cEveryone always goes back to [saying], \u2018I wish I could relive that summer 2016 era again. People correlating their experiences with that song also makes it the song of the summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor anyone going through a gnarly breakup, that might be \u201cChoosin\u2019 Texas,\u201d but Milan says, \u201cit doesn\u2019t make me want to hit the club\u201d \u2014 at least not like Tyla and Zara Larsson\u2019s \u201cShe Did It Again,\u201d or Ayra Starr\u2019s latest run of singles. \u201cI\u2019m not just walking in the mall and just pressing Shazam,\u201d Milan says. \u201cLike, no, this is something that we\u2019ve heard in the party and the DJ is dropping it, and we all sung it with all our hearts and we danced to it and we enjoyed this night.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tWhile some clear picks have been locked in, it isn\u2019t too late for some others to storm in as last-minute song of the summer contenders. There\u2019s the Beyonc\u00e9 archive release \u201cMorning Dew (Donk)\u201d (\u201cThat could come and steal the show, especially if she puts out some type of dance remix,\u201d Hunt says), and Saucy Santana\u2019s viral track \u201cQuiet on the Creek.\u201d There\u2019s still a chance for it to hit in the club, if not on the charts. \u201cI\u2019ve always advocated for DJs to develop their own personal taste as a DJ, where you have to have a balance of reading the room, but also giving the room something to read,\u201d Milan says. DJs have to be open to some trial and error here, especially as we approach the final stretch of the season. But it\u2019s worth the risk if it results in a moment like the one Hunt captured with \u201cSpend Dat\u201d back in June.<\/p>\n

\n\tSummer isn\u2019t over yet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n