Survey Says: Classic Tracks vs. Summertime Hits
Everyone’s talking about the 2015 “songs of the summer”—those tunes that are already blasting from your beach-bound car speakers and at your neighbors’ summer barbecues—and until now, the jury’s been out on the song that will take top honors. iHeartRadio’s VP of Artist Relations, Marissa Morris, shared some contenders to kick off the season, and now that summer is in full swing, we’ve asked our listeners what they think is this summer’s number one song.
In collecting responses from more than 1,600 iHeartRadio users, we discovered that artists from Taylor Swift and Ellie Goulding to The Weeknd and Maroon 5 are taking over their airwaves this season. And the top pick for the 2015 Song of the Summer across all of these listeners? A tie between Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” and Maroon 5’s new hit “This Summer’s Gonna Hurt.”
We also asked the same listeners what albums they’d take to a deserted island, and the songs they chose as summer favorites were not necessarily their all-time, tried and true, go-to jams. For example, pop fans surveyed didn’t think Taylor Swift and Maroon 5 were worthy of this year’s top summertime prize (they prefer Ellie Goulding’s “Love Me Like You Do”), but most pop music fans would choose to take Swift’s 1989 to a deserted island.
Meanwhile, country fans would pick T-Swift’s “Bad Blood” for Song of the Summer, but they’d prefer to jam out to Eric Church’s The Outsiders or Zac Brown’s Greatest Hits on repeat in that remote location.
Finally, the majority of rock fans chose Maroon 5’s “This Summer’s Gonna Hurt” as the 2015 Song of the Summer, but would take Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon to a deserted island.
It shows that a summer smash is great, but a timeless classic is even better. One of the biggest milestones a song can reach is transitioning from a seasonal hit to legendary status. And who knows? Maybe a few of this year’s songs of summer (*ahem* Tay-Tay) are on their way to helping their respective albums secure a highly coveted spot in our deserted island travel bags.
