Dust off your pastels and find something to bedazzle because we're all about to spend the summer back in our collective Lover Era. In case you haven't heard, Taylor Swift has a new single. Well, make that a "new" single, with emphasis on the air quoted-ness of "new" because the song her label picked as her next single is actually four years old.
"Cruel Summer" (from 2019's Lover) is taking a surprise trip to radio this summer and the whole journey is surprising organic (you know, for a label-promoted single at least). I'm sure there's an algorithm or something (maybe a flow chart? Official record label Tarot reader? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) that music executives typically use to predict hits/choose singles, but "Cruel Summer" got there because fans just really wanted to listen to it right now.
The short version is that the song is being streamed so, so much right now that Taylor's label, Republic, was like, "Oh, we should monetize that give the fans what they want," but Taylor is personally feeling a lot of feelings about the news because, like many people, "Cruel Summer" is her personal favorite track from Lover. The long version is this 1:41 speech Taylor gave about the whole thing this weekend in Pittsburgh.
"The weirdest, most magical thing is happening. It’s never happened to me in the whole time I’ve ever been doing this, " she explained during an impromptu speech about the development during her Eras Tour concert Saturday night at Acrisure Stadium. "'Cruel Summer’ is a song, I just played it a second ago. I don’t know if you remember. We had a blast, yeah? The one with the bridge where we all screamed. ‘Cruel Summer’ was on the Lover album. That album came out four years ago. And I just need to let you know something: ‘Cruel Summer,’ that song was my pride and joy on that album."
Fair, because just listen to it:
Wondering why it took four years for "Cruel Summer" to be released as a single, since it's Taylor's fave? She covered that in the speech too:
"You have conversations before the album comes out. Everybody around weighs in on what they think should be singles. I was finally, finally about to have my favorite song become the single — off of Lover," she explained—unfortunately, "Cruel Summer" was supposed to be a single in 2020, when the real summer/life in general was so cruel it made releasing a song actually called "Cruel Summer" seem like a not-so-great idea.
"I’m not trying to blame the global pandemic that we had, but that is something that happened that stopped ‘Cruel Summer’ from ever being a single," she added. "No one understands how this is happening, but you guys have streamed ‘Cruel Summer’ so much right now in 2023 that it's like at the top—it's like rising on the streaming charts so crazy that my label just decided to make it the next single."
Is anyone good at starting those big, demanding group chants? Because *attempts chant kickoff* "CRUEL SUMMER MUSIC VIDEO." *back in normal voice after realizing I'm not pulling it off* "...please?"
