It’s a phenomenon that brings people together. It’s catchy, hard to get out of your head and captures the feeling during the warmest months of the year — the song of the summer.

With more ways to consume music through streaming platforms and social media, a collection of songs, rather than a single one, tends to define the season. For Baltimore listeners, it’s no different.

Radio and Shazam data from the music analytics platform Chartmetric show Baltimore’s summer listening habits reflect trends similar to the rest of the country’s. The most played song on Baltimore radio stations was “Lose Control” by Teddy Swims with 2,506 plays from June 1 to Aug. 21, or more than once an hour. The data counts plays across 11 of the market’s top music stations. Swims’ soulful ballad placed eighth on Billboard’s top 10 songs between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

“Lose Control” and the rest of Baltimore radio’s top 200 combined for almost 72,000 plays over the summer, with the top 20 songs accounting for almost a third of them.

Whether it was encountered on the radio or elsewhere, for more than half of the days in the same time period, “Lose Control” was the most common song Baltimore Shazam users asked the app to identify. Rapper Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby” was the most searched on 17 days and genre-bending Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” was on 10 days (both artists hail from Northern Virginia).

“A Bar Song (Tipsy)” broke through on streaming as well, cracking Spotify’s summer top 5, which the platform based on streams and editorial judgment. Here is Spotify’s list, presented in descending order of plays by users with Baltimore postal addresses, from June 1 to Aug. 20:

1. “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” by Billie Eilish

2. “HOT TO GO!” by Chappell Roan

3. “Not Like Us” by Kendrick Lamar

4. “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter

5. “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” by Shaboozey

While the song of the summer is debatable, at its core, it’s music that brings joy to listeners.

“To me, a song of the summer would be something that allows someone to feel good, puts them in a positive mood, makes them put their worries to the side,” said Wordsmith, also known as Anthony Parker, a Baltimore-based songwriter, poet and composer. “When they turn it on, no matter what’s going on in their life, it just brings them joy, brings them happiness, raises their spirit, elevates their mind.”

Like the broader culture that surrounds and shapes it, the song of the summer has evolved, becoming more decentralized as music listening shifts from radio to streaming and social media, according to Stephanie Shonekan, an ethnomusicologist and dean of the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Maryland.

New ways to listen to music have created a more custom experience for listeners. A 2023 global study from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry about music engagement showed that people are listening to more music and in more ways than ever before. Audio streaming services like Spotify or Apple Music accounted for a little less than a third of respondents’ music listening time and radio for 17%.

“That’s the thing about culture. It’s not static, right?” Shonekan said. “Back in the day, the song of the summer would have been something that was blasted off on boom boxes, on the streets or on the radio.”

Shonekan considers “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter to be the top song of the summer, not just for its popularity, but for its fun vibe, unapologetic lyrics and disco flare. Still, it wasn’t among Baltimore radio’s top 200 most-played songs, according to Chartmetric.

Locally, songs of the summer could be found in Baltimore Club music, Parker said.

“Club music is, I would say, more of a dance form of music, but it’s something that’s engraved as a part of the culture of Baltimore City,” he said.

Changes in listening habits haven’t stopped with music streaming. More people listen to music through video streaming services like YouTube and TikTok, or nearly a third of respondents to IFPI’s survey. TikTok identified “Million Dollar Baby” by Tommy Richman as its No. 1 song of the summer in the U.S.

With music available immediately without listeners needing to seek out the most recent tape, record or CD, Parker observes the influence of “instant gratification” on modern listening habits, which he said can have pros and cons. The accessibility reduces barriers between artists and their audiences but also makes the experience less communal and less tangible.

This immediacy was at play when rappers Kendrick Lamar and Drake released several diss tracks aimed at each other, Parker said. Kendrick Lamar’s song “Not Like Us,” released May 4, was the eighth most played on Baltimore radio stations between June 1 and Aug. 21.

“It got people to talk. It got people to engage, not so much with the musicians, but with themselves, with friends, with strangers, share opinions, share thoughts, create content videos talking about it,” Parker said, emphasizing that when artists can generate focus on themselves, the world will do the rest.

Lamar’s song rose quickly to prominence online, including locally after Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott took the stage to a loop of the song’s chorus upon securing the Democratic mayoral nomination in May.