We compared June–August US Google searches for "<song> lyrics" in each Billboard Song of the Summer's year with the same three months a year later, for 2010–2025. Of the 12 songs with unambiguous titles, 9 kept 10% or less: Cheerleader (5%), Old Town Road (5%), Blurred Lines (6%) fell hardest. Recent winners hung on longer: "As It Was" (2022) kept 26% and "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" (2024) kept 39%. "Rockstar", "Butter", "Last Night" and "Ordinary" are shown but not ranked, because other songs share those titles.
Songs of the Summer: next-summer retention
| Year | Song | Artist | Search peak month | Jun–Aug avg, hit year | Jun–Aug avg, next year | Kept |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | California Gurls | Katy Perry | Jun 2010 | 71.3 | 5 | 7% |
| 2011 | Party Rock Anthem | LMFAO | Jul 2011 | 88.3 | 18.3 | 21% |
| 2012 | Call Me Maybe | Carly Rae Jepsen | Jun 2012 | 75 | 7.3 | 10% |
| 2013 | Blurred Lines | Robin Thicke | Aug 2013 | 71.3 | 4.3 | 6% |
| 2014 | Fancy | Iggy Azalea | Jun 2014 | 76.7 | 4.3 | 6% |
| 2015 | Cheerleader | OMI | Jul 2015 | 75 | 3.7 | 5% |
| 2016 | One Dance | Drake | May 2016 | 43.7 | 2.7 | 6% |
| 2017 | Despacito | Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee | Jun 2017 | 82 | 7 | 9% |
| 2018 | Nice for What | Drake | Apr 2018 | 27 | 2 | 7% |
| 2019 | Old Town Road | Lil Nas X | Apr 2019 | 46.3 | 2.3 | 5% |
| 2020 | Rockstar | DaBaby ft Roddy Ricch | Jul 2020 | 16.7 | 4 | 24% (ambiguous title) |
| 2021 | Butter | BTS | May 2021 | 33 | 13 | 39% (ambiguous title) |
| 2022 | As It Was | Harry Styles | Apr 2022 | 25.7 | 6.7 | 26% |
| 2023 | Last Night | Morgan Wallen | Feb 2023 | 14.3 | 7 | 49% (ambiguous title) |
| 2024 | A Bar Song (Tipsy) | Shaboozey | Jun 2024 | 87 | 33.7 | 39% |
| 2025 | Ordinary | Alex Warren | Sep 2025 | 38.3 | 14.7 | 38% (ambiguous title) |
What it means
Every song on these charts started as a hook someone wrote down. If you have a hook of your own, an AI song generator can turn it into a full track with vocals in a few minutes. For a soundtrack to your own day, an AI music generator can score it to whatever mood you need.
Method
- Google search interest, US, web search, one query per song for "<title> lyrics", Jan 2004–Sep 2026 (monthly points). Each song's series is scaled to its own peak (=100), so the metrics are shapes: share of a song's own peak, not volume.
- Songs of the Summer list from Billboard's year-end Songs of the Summer. Values are % of each song's own peak month; "Kept" = next summer's Jun–Aug average ÷ hit summer's.
- Ambiguous titles removed (33 songs, leaving 110): a song is dropped if its all-time search peak falls more than 12 months from its first week at No. 1 (another song or meaning dominates, e.g. "Seven", "Up", "Rockstar"), or if searches in months 13–36 before its peak already averaged ≥10% of the peak (common phrase, e.g. "So What", "Savage").
Cite and download
Free to use and cite with a link back to this page.
aisong.lol Research. (2026). Songs of the Summer that were forgotten by the next July. aisong.lol. https://aisong.lol/research/songs-of-the-summer-that-were-forgotten-by-the-next-july
Use this data. Every table in this study as one spreadsheet-ready file.
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