Source: Google search interest, US web search, Jun 1–Aug 31 each year.
Setup: one query per year comparing 3–5 contenders, each queried as "title + artist". Contenders were the Billboard Song of the Summer plus summer Hot 100 No. 1s and notable year-end hits; they are our editorial selection.
Metric: each song's share of the summed weekly interest across that year's contenders.

Each year Billboard crowns an official Song of the Summer based on chart performance from June to August. We compared that pick with US Google search interest over the same months, from 2010 to 2025. Billboard's winner was also the most-searched contender in only four summers: "Blurred Lines" (2013), "One Dance" (2016), "Butter" (2021) and "Ordinary" (2025). In the other years, searchers obsessed over something else. "Love the Way You Lie" outsearched "California Gurls" by more than 2.5 to 1 in 2010. Lizzo's "Truth Hurts" doubled the search interest of "Old Town Road" in 2019, the year of its record 19-week run. Jason Aldean's controversy-fuelled "Try That in a Small Town" took 58% of 2023 summer search share against 15% for Billboard's pick, "Last Night".

Table: Billboard's pick vs the search winner (share of summer search interest among contenders, US)

Year	Billboard Song of the Summer	Its search share	Most-searched contender	Share
2010	California Gurls	18%	Love the Way You Lie	48%
2011	Party Rock Anthem	21%	Rolling in the Deep	59%
2012	Call Me Maybe	26%	Whistle (Flo Rida)*	33%
2013	Blurred Lines	61%	match
2014	Fancy	38%	Rude (Magic!)*	38% (tie)
2015	Cheerleader	32%	Bad Blood	47%
2016	One Dance	66%	match
2017	Despacito	30%	Believer	40%
2018	Nice for What	5%	In My Feelings	44%
2019	Old Town Road	21%	Truth Hurts	49%
2020	Rockstar	14%	WAP	53%
2021	Butter	68%	match
2022	As It Was	33%	About Damn Time	48%
2023	Last Night	15%	Try That in a Small Town	58%
2024	A Bar Song (Tipsy)	n/a†	Please Please Please	54% (Not Like Us 36%)
2025	Ordinary	40%	match (Manchild 37%)

\* Single-word titles ("whistle", "rude"), queried as title + artist like every contender. † 2024 is excluded from the match count.

Pattern: Search winners skew toward controversy and conversation, such as "WAP", "Try That in a Small Town", "Not Like Us" and "Bad Blood", over radio-and-streaming staples.

What it means

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Method

Source: Google search interest, US web search, Jun 1–Aug 31 each year.
Setup: one query per year comparing 3–5 contenders, each queried as "title + artist". Contenders were the Billboard Song of the Summer plus summer Hot 100 No. 1s and notable year-end hits; they are our editorial selection.
Metric: each song's share of the summed weekly interest across that year's contenders.
Reference: Billboard winners from Billboard's published Song of the Summer list.

Cite and download

Free to use and cite with a link back to this page.

aisong.lol Research. (2026). Billboard's Song of the Summer vs what America actually Googled. aisong.lol. https://aisong.lol/research/billboards-song-of-the-summer-vs-what-america-actually-googled

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