Taylor Swift may be owning the summer already with her Eras Tour filling out stadiums and parking lots, too. Now, she may be taking a shot at the song of the summer with a fan-favourite released almost four years ago.
Swift announced during her concert last week at Pittsburgh’s Acrisure Stadium that Republic Records will be bringing her song ‘Cruel Summer’ — plucked from the 2019 album ‘Lover’ — to radio stations nationwide after a surge in streaming numbers.
“No one understands how this is happening, but you guys have streamed ‘Cruel Summer’ so much right now in 2023 my label decided to make it the next single,” she told the crowd.
Republic Records, a label owned by Universal Music Group, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
‘Cruel Summer’ will be played on pop radio stations beginning on June 20, according to Billboard. The song charted on the Billboard Hot 100 on June 3 for the first time since ‘Lover’ was released in August 2019. Between June 2 and June 8, the song racked up 9.6 million official streams, 2.6 million radio impressions and 1,500 download, according to data from music company Luminate, obtained by Billboard.
Swift explained that ‘Cruel Summer’ was one of her favourite tracks off ‘Lover’, but it never had the chance to live as a single. The head-bopper was slated to hit radio stations in summer 2020, but the coronavirus pandemic interrupted that plan, Swift said. (The pandemic also forced Swift to cancel her tour for the ‘Lover’ album, called ‘Lover Fest’.)
After ‘Lover’ was released, Swift continued to drop new music. She released two albums — ‘Folklore’ and ‘Evermore’ — in 2020, and then unveiled two of her re-recorded albums — ‘Fearless (Taylor’s Version)’ and ‘Red (Taylor’s Version)’ — in 2021. (Her next re-recorded album ‘Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)’ is due out July 7.) Last October, Swift surprised fans with the release of ‘Midnights’.
But ‘Lover’ has never left the minds of true Swifties nor Swift herself. She told the Pittsburgh crowd Saturday night that ‘Cruel Summer’ was her “pride and joy on that album” and she is happy to see it released as a single — four years later.
“It’s truly, truly perplexing to me,” she told the crowd. “I just haven’t had something like this happen in my career. Thank you to anyone who’s been listening to that song, like, 500 times a day.”
