Which pop star will have this year’s 'Brat Summer'?

WE USED TO have a “song of the summer”: a tune — usually from the realms of pop — that dominated the charts, house parties and car radios for the silliest season. Katy Perry’s “California Gurls”, Rihanna’s “Umbrella”, Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe”. But songs alone cannot rule anymore: the monoculture is a distant memory, culture comes at us from all sides. And who listens to the radio anymore?

Charli xcx’s immaculate collection of club bangers Brat shows how you can still make your mark. The music, produced in collaboration with AG Cook, The 1975’s George Daniel and more, was great. But the branding, spearheaded by that lime green cover, was impeccable. And so the summer gave into the album. A Lime bike? Brat. Cheating on your fiancé? So Brat. Running through 17 vapes in a night? Very Brat. It was a colour, a fashion movement, a lifestyle. (None of this analysis, I should add, is very Brat.)

That leads us to a pressing question. Which pop star will follow suit and own summer 2025? Who can transcend music and make their way into Instagram captions, news headlines, and our sweat-drenched collective conscience? Here are Esquire’s best guesses.

Oasis

Oasis, finally reunited after 16 years of squabbling their way around the globe, will rule the summer with their upcoming sold-out tour. That’s a given. My question is: which era of the Gallagher brothers will we be taking our style cues from? When Noel released his divisive solo single “Holy Mountain” in 2017, he said he wanted to shake off “the parka monkeys” and “the little 15-year-old snotty c**ts with polka-dot scarfs”. Sadly for him, they’ll obviously be well-represented at every step of the tour. But what about Liam’s flowy, Definitely Maybe-era Burberry check shirts? Or Noel’s knitted Mod polos, circa Be Here Now? Liam’s Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants-era aviators are arguably a better choice than his tiny round John Lennon specs, but everyone should avoid his Dig Out Your Soul-era Lord Farquaad haircut like the plague. And where does Bonehead’s surprisingly debonair new goatee fit into all of this? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Nick Pope

Olivia Rodrigo

Olivia Rodrigo — the brightest and funniest pop star of her generation — already achieved a run of summer dominance in 2021 with the release of debut album Sour: “drivers license” was immediately followed by “deja vu”, which made way for the blockbuster “good 4 u”. This summer, the 22-year-old (I know!) is headlining Glastonbury and rumours are swirling about a new album. She has been TikToking on Lime bikes across East London, she has a British boyfriend, and she keeps namedropping Britpop as an influence for her new record. I would place a tenner of Rodrigo turning up to the Oasis reunion tour, and double that more on her ruling the music and social scene. She’s got the jokes and the right look. And teenagers and dads love her alike. Demographic princess!

Henry Wong

Haim

When my TikTok feed started pushing dance routines soundtracked by “Relationships”, the first single off Haim’s upcoming album I Quit, I knew something was bubbling. Inevitably, that 15-second clip swayed me to get off the app (shocking!) and add the song to a Spotify playlist. Now I’m hooked. Of course, my opinion of their summer domination is not just formed by my music tastes. Post-Charli, it seems natural to keep the girl power going by platforming these three sisters. Especially as we enter the season of singledom, and they “can’t stand fuckin’ relationships”. It’s not a message for everyone — most of my team are very happy in their coupledom — but those who relate will be belting it from their lungs in due course. And that music video! It’s cool-tone colour palate saturated in Nineties Prada references, with a memorable cameo from hot boy of the moment, Drew Starkey.

Carmen Bellot

Beyoncé

Sorry to be that stereotypical member of the Bey Hive, but whenever Beyoncé puts her mind to anything, she reigns supreme. Consequently, her arrival in London in June to continue the UK leg of her Cowboy Carter tour instantly — and immediately — results in a Beyoncé summer. The country record just won a (hideously overdue) Album Of The Year at the Grammys; it is the second act in a rumoured trilogy in which the Houston-native champions overlooked contributions of pioneering Black artists to different genres. This tour will transform the streets of North London into a Texas hoedown. Cowboy hats at the ready, chaps optional.

Olivia Blair

SZA

“I might kill my ex” was the NSFW song lyric that SZA had everyone and their mum roaring when she released her critically-acclaimed album, SOS, in 2022. She delighted fans with the deluxe version of the diaristic record, LANA, in December and now the R&B star is teaming up with hip-hop icon, Grammy winner and self-proclaimed Drake hater Kendrick Lamar, for a stadium tour. The Grand National Tour is set to see arenas filled with eager fans chanting “they not like us” and “all the stars are closer” as the musical duo undoubtedly take over our playlists and social media feeds once more this summer.

Furvah Shah

Bon Iver

I don’t want to be that person, but much as we’d all love to be taking out second mortgages this summer to go and see our favourite pop acts shake their tuchuses in a shower of pyro (looking at you, Noel), the fact is that we’ll do most of music-listening this summer in solitude, probably through headphones, while staring glassily out of a train carriage window. For those purposes, there’s really only one album that you’ll need: Bon Iver’s SABLE fABLE, which came out in April. It’s been described as a kind of happy compromise between Justin Vernon’s breakthrough 2007 album, For Emma, Forever Ago, and some of the more experimental stuff he’s done since, and it certainly delivers both the simple beauty of falsetto and finger-picked guitars alongside some stealthily muscular white-boy funk and blues-inflected pop. The other reason you’ll be listening to SABLE fABLE on headphones is that Vernon has said he’s not going to tour with it, as the strains of doing so are too spiritually detrimental to him, but the intimacy of the one-to-one delivery suits his exquisite music just fine.

Miranda Collinge

Doechii

With 47 million monthly listeners on Spotify, and an endorsement by none other than Kendrick Lamar calling her “the hardest rapper in the game”, Doechii needs little introduction. That is pretty staggering, considering the Florida-born rapper is 1) 26 years old and 2) arguably only broke the mainstream less than a year ago. The Grammy-winning, Glastonbury-headlining, record-breaking rap artist is, rightfully, setting hearts ablaze. Doechii is at the start — albeit the white-hot start — of her career, and everyone is talking.

Natalie Zannikos

Lorde

Following the recent selection of a new pope, we’re in for a Lord Summer. And if my spiritual intuition serves me correctly, I’d like to submit that we’re also in for a Lorde Summer. All signs are pointing towards the New Zealand musician’s most impactful and, dare I say, iconic era yet, Melodrama (2017), of course, being the project to beat. The new album, releasing this June, is called Virgin, a title that is as punchy and provocative as Brat. The tour is called Ultrasound, a double-entendre that ties into Virgin’s jarring X-Ray cover art. So — strong name, clear theme: tick, tick. And Charli xcx herself has handed over the baton to the Kiwi, her former rival-turned-friend: after performing their unexpected collab — the remix of “Girl, so confusing”, a Brat track that throws shade at Lorde — at Coachella, the British pop star declared it a “Lorde Summer”.

Joseph Furness

Charli xcx

“I’m interested in the tension of staying too long,” Charli xcx said last month. A typically genius, self-aware line that feels like a prophecy and a manifesto rolled into one. After years as pop’s most fearless innovator, Brat finally put her on the throne. But summer 2025 will be no cooldown — it’ll be a victory lap at full speed. Charli’s back from conquering global stages, and as her homecoming shows (ie: Victoria Park) erupt in Brat green euphoria, tracks like “Von Dutch”, “360”, “Sympathy is a Knife”, and “365” will land with even more unhinged abandon. With 7.9 million Instagram followers and brand deals coming out of her ears — Converse, Valentino, H&M, Acne Studios, Skims etc, etc — she feels more culturally significant than ever. This is Charli’s imperial phase, but also a hinge point. Theories abound about where she’ll go next. A Lou Reed-inspired left turn? An indie-folk curveball? A full rock reinvention? Or maybe an even brattier, chaotic, rave-fuelled Brat 2.0? Whatever comes next, Charli won’t chase the moment. She is the moment! And right now, it’s still hers to burn.

Johnny Davis

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This story originally appeared on Esquire UK