The Charts and the Clubs Have Different Definitions of the Song of the Summer

Diamora Hunt didn’t have to do much during the first stretch of her CultureCon Café 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.

The crowd’s 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 “Spend Dat,” the Yung Miami hit released in April. “That room erupted in a unison of happiness,” Hunt tells Rolling Stone . “They just took that moment to be talking about, ‘Where are the scammers?’”

In the weeks since, “Spend Dat” has surged to certified summer soundtrack status with a Number 17 peak on the Billboard Hot 100. The chart’s top 10 has been consistently occupied by blockbuster hits from Ella Langley (“Choosin’ Texas”), Olivia Dean (“Man I Need”), Tame Impala (“Dracula”), and more. But the charts and the clubs don’t 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?

“A lot of people would consider it as what’s charting the highest and what’s being played most on the radio,” says Jacob Carnes, better known in the club scene as Jacobdior. “But now that I DJ and I’m 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’s a hit?” This summer, he’s had “Spend Dat” on his rotation alongside viral hits like Trim’s “Coconut Water” and BabyChiefDoit ’s “Ghetto Love Story,” which only just entered the Hot 100 a few weeks ago, plus older tracks like Amerie’s “1 Thing” and Kehlani’s “Folded.” Editor’s picks The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century

“Radio used to be able to tell you what to play in a sense of, ‘Oh, this is what’s hot.’ You’ll hear it enough. Either you like it or you don’t,” Hunt says. “Now it does depend on [a DJs] own algorithm.” She remembers when the gap between what dominated on air and outside didn’t feel so wide. Around the time Hunt started DJing in 2017, Cardi B set the summer on fire with “Bodak Yellow.” It was inescapable, the kind of hit that signaled a definitive shift. “I could play that five times in a row and it would go up every single time,” Hunt says.