After last year when there didn’t seem to an overwhelming song of summer and the summer before that was dominated by Despacito, 2019 has a couple of strong contenders that stand out from the pack. Happily for the first time in what seems like awhile I actually like them all.

I think pretty much the undisputed song of the summer is Little Nas X’s “Old Town Road”. It’s been at the top of the Billboard charts for the past 14 weeks and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

There are a couple of other songs that are ubiquitous enough at this point that they too could make a case that they are the song of the summer.

Lizzo actually has two of them. “Juice” is still the song that is inescapable more than any other song because not only is it still all over the radio it has been included in seemingly every commercial, tv show, and movie that’s come out this year. It definitely has the fun attitude and beat of a perfect song of summer, but it’s power does seem to fading. Partly that’s due to the fact that Lizzo’s song “Truth Hurts” is overtaking its airplay. It is also an excellent jam and has some momentum that will probably give it staying power for the rest of the summer.

Finally, there’s Billie Eilish’s “bad guy”. It’s been moving up the charts over the past 14 weeks, but has stalled out at number 2. We’ll see if it has the power to finally bump “Old Town Road” out of the top spot, but I suspect it might be one of those songs that sits at number 2 and never reaches the number 1 position. Just for the record I am anti the new remix featuring Justin Beiber and am going to be annoyed if that’s what gets it there.

I’m actually a little surprised that Billie Eilish has become as popular as she’s become. First she seemed very niche among a specific teenager group and something the olds didn’t understand. Now her music seems to have become more universally loved though her core audience seems like it’s still very hardcore teenager. I suppose that’s how it’s supposed to be with pop music, if you can even call her music pop music. “bad guy” is probably the song that comes to the closest to being an actual pop song, which is probably why it has become popular. I love it and want to do a little dance to it every time I hear it.