Dear Gossips,  

Pitchfork asked the question yesterday “What will the 2021 Song of the Summer Be?” with a list of candidates including songs from Saweetie, Doja Cat, Megan Thee Stallion, Olivia Rodrigo, Justin Bieber, and more.  

 

There’s a lot that goes into a Song of the Summer. It’s not just about the charts but about how it permeates the culture and dominates the conversation. And there’s not always consensus. Two recent Songs of the Summer that were undeniable winners were “Despacito” in 2017 and “Old Town Road” in 2019. And they both represent the spirit of the Song of the Summer since we started talking about the Song of the Summer as a seasonal headline just over a decade ago. Last year was a weird one for obvious reasons and there were several contenders, but DaBaby and Roddy Ricch’s “Rockstar” and “WAP”, of course, by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion come up a lot. And then there’s BTS’s “Dynamite”, a song that was technically a summer song but stuck around through the fall and winter and spring.

This year BTS’s Song of the Summer entry is “Butter”, which Pitchfork has on its list and, again, while there’s more to the Song of the Summer than just sales, if we’re just going by the Billboard Hot 100, “Butter” at this point in the summer would take it because it was confirmed yesterday that BTS is #1 for the fifth straight week, the first track since “Despacito” in fact to “sell at least 100,000 in its first five weeks” and the first song by a group to be on top of the Hot 100 for this long since Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men’s “One Sweet Day”. That’s the kind of company that BTS is keeping these days.  

 

In other BTS news, they may be readying to release another single soon – there’s been buzz for weeks about something coming in July. And Ed Sheeran, while on the promo circuit for “Bad Habits” confirmed on IG live that he’s collaborated with BTS on a new track called “Permission to Dance”.  

BTS + Dance? I can’t wait for the choreo.  

Yours in gossip,

Lainey