When DJ Jim Cerone looks out over a crowded dance floor, he sees dozens of people with distinct musical tastes. Each person has a separate list of favorite songs on Spotify, or different tunes they know from their catered TikTok feed.
“Then you put 200 of those people in a room together at a wedding reception and they don’t want to listen to someone else’s favorite,” Cerone said. “They just want to listen to theirs.”
Gone are the days when everyone listened to the same radio station and knew the same handful of songs. We’re having fewer shared cultural experiences thanks to streaming services and social media algorithms, whether it’s television, movies, news sources or the oft-romanticized song of the summer.
From Memorial Day to Labor Day, more people are outside listening to music blare from bars, restaurants and open windows on passing cars. Whether it was “Every Breath You Take” by the Police in 1983, TLC’s “Waterfalls” in 1995 or Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” in 2012, there is usually one song that stands above the rest in terms of popularity.
Today, it’s much more difficult to identify one song that most people grew to love this summer. Based on which chart and which med...