All this week, The FADER explored the Songs of the Summer, from massive global hits to the most exciting tracks from emerging artists. We broke our list of contenders into a March Madness-style bracket, with four regionals, each representing a different type of summer song. The FADER staff fought the tracks off against each other and came out with a winner from each regional before finally picking our ultimate Song of the Summer on Friday.
Today, we’re tipping our hats to the songs that we love but didn’t quite make it, the Honorable Mentions. We’ve placed them in the categories they almost fell under; click the links to find out which songs made it through.
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The Main Stage bracket are the heavyweights, the songs you couldn’t avoid this summer, like it or not.
Sabrina Carpenter: "Espresso"
This was the Summer of Sabrina Carpenter, who kept all her simps up at night like caffeine addicts. Flirty and fun with a little ’70s funk, this was inescapable for good reason. — Sandra Song
Shaboozey: "A Bar Song"
This is the sort of mega-hit that seeps into every corner of society, from the dive bars it’s set in to the pop radio stations its pop-trap leans towards. After well over a decade of mainstream country stealing wholesale from hip-hop, with unconvincing results, Shaboozey sounds refreshingly effortless. — Alex Robert Ross
Grupo Frontera feat. Maluma: "Por Que Sera"
I could have picked anything off Grupo Frontera’s excellent second album JUGANDO A QUE NO PASA NADA. This collaboration with Mexican mariacheño singer Christian Nodal wins partly because the accordion and guitars blend charmingly, partly because I love Nodal’s voice, but mostly because, whenever I’ve stuck this on, in public or in private this year, I’ve ended up involuntarily clenching my fist and pounding my heart at the crest of the chorus. — ARR
In the Brat regional, we focused on songs that made us feel bright green, self-confident, and unbothered.
Pretty Sick: "Streetwise"
My Urban Studies professor once called change the only constant in cities — with Pretty Sick and xmal, it can happen in one night. With palpable boredom in Sabrina Fuentes’ voice, “Streetwise” delivers a self-aware (“Are you gonna play ‘Dumb’”), but ultimately “fun, fun, fun” song of party-hopping in the city. — Hannah Sung
Laila!: "Not My Problem"
Summer is a time for abdicating responsibility and pushing preoccupations, big or small, to the colder months. Laila completely embodies that mindset on her naggingly addictive “Not My Problem.” Over hazy synths and tinny drums that ratatattat, she simply breezes on by. It’s a timely reminder that life is only as serious as you choose to take it. — David Renshaw
The Touch Grass bracket celebrated songs that should be drifting out of Bluetooth speakers in a park at 6 p.m.
Nia Archives: "Cards on the Table"
The drums that skitter along beneath the acoustic guitar and Nia Archives’s nonchalant vocals on “Cards on the Table” are so relentless, that they eventually blur and disappear, the same way car horns and exhausts soften into the ambient sound of a city park. Endlessly replayable. — ARR
Chief Keef: "Treat Myself"
After spreading the gospel of Chicago drill to the masses, Chief Keef is more than deserving of an anthemic self-appreciation anthem like “Treat Myself.” A self-produced banger that sees the Almighty So hype up his own legacy, you could even call it a surrealist masterpiece between his old Honeycomb cereal references, quips about wearing enough yellow diamonds to “look like I peed myself,” and even comparisons himself to Gucci Mane. — SS
The songs in the Slacker bracket were your soundtrack for waking up at noon, throwing on a shirt you haven’t washed in two weeks, and avoiding getting a summer job.
This is Lorelei: "I'm All Fucked Up"
Nate Amos’s solo project This is Lorelei shares the off-kilter vibe of his other band Water From Your Eyes, all jangly-guitar fun with a pop throughline. “I’m All Fucked Up” is dedicated to his younger self, a way to make sense of the dizziness of youth with the added perspective of an adult. It’s still lovingly chaotic, though, with allusions to botched haircuts, putting the pedal to the metal, stargazing, and lawlessness, all in the name of the hazy days of summer. — Cady Siregar