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Cruel Summer (Taylor Swift song)

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"Cruel Summer"
The Cruelest Summer cover
Single by Taylor Swift
from the album Lover
ReleasedJune 20, 2023 (2023-06-20)
Studio
Genre
Length2:58
LabelRepublic
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)
  • Taylor Swift
  • Jack Antonoff
Taylor Swift singles chronology
"Karma"
(2023)
"Cruel Summer"
(2023)
"Slut!"
(2023)

"Cruel Summer" is a song by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift from her seventh studio album, Lover, released on August 23, 2019. It was written by Swift, St. Vincent, and Jack Antonoff, who produced the track with Swift. "Cruel Summer" combines synth-pop, industrial pop, and electropop styles, making use of pulsing synthesizers, wobbling beats, and vocoder-affected vocals. The lyrics are about a summer romance under intense, painful circumstances.

Met with acclaim from music critics, "Cruel Summer" was often praised for its catchy melody, rousing production, and the composition of its hook and bridge. Year-end lists from Billboard and Rolling Stone ranked it one of the best songs of 2019. Contemporaneous and retrospective reviews deemed it a highlight on Lover and one of Swift's finest songs.

Upon the album's release, "Cruel Summer" debuted in the top-30 region of various national charts, including the United States' Billboard Hot 100. It became a fan favorite over time and was regarded by some journalists as a song that deserved to be released as a single. Swift explained that she had intended to release it as such in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted her plans.

Swift embarked on the Eras Tour (2023–2024), which features "Cruel Summer" on the set-list. The song subsequently experienced viral popularity and resurged on several charts, including a top-50 re-entry on the Hot 100. As a result, Republic Records released the song to US contemporary hit radio on June 20, 2023, as the fifth single from Lover. "Cruel Summer" has since peaked at number one in the US, where it became Swift's tenth Hot 100 topper, and record-breaking 12th and 8th number-ones on Pop Airplay and Radio Songs charts, respectively. Elsewhere, the song has topped the charts in Canada, the Philippines, Singapore, and peaked within the top 10 in Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

Background

The song's title was an easter egg in the music video for "You Need to Calm Down", the second single from Taylor Swift's seventh studio album Lover (2019).[1] Termed by Swift as a song about a "summer romance", "Cruel Summer" sees Swift describing an uncertain romantic relationship, with elements of pain and desperation in it.[2] It portrays the challenges faced by pop stars in the public spotlight.[3] The vulnerability of the song's lyrics has drawn comparisons to "Delicate", the fifth track on Swift's 2017 album Reputation.[3]

American musician St. Vincent co-wrote and played a guitar on "Cruel Summer".

In the audio recordings from Lover Secret Sessions, a series of album-listening parties hosted by Swift, she explained that:

This song is one that I wrote about the feeling of a summer romance, and how often times a summer romance can be layered with all these feelings of pining away and sometimes even secrecy. It deals with the idea of being in a relationship where there's some element of desperation and pain in it, where you're yearning for something that you don't quite have yet, it's just right there, and you just can't reach it.

— Swift, "Taylor Swift Shares Intimate Details of Lover Songs During Secret Session", iHeartRadio[2]

Billboard's Heran Mamo opined that the song's lyrics see Swift "wrestling with strong feelings", where they paint "the picture of an emotional night out".[4] Justin Styles of The Ringer wrote that the song tells a "more humanizing version" of Swift's "ill-fated period three years ago", adding that Swift sings about "falling in love with current boyfriend Joe Alwyn while her public life was in shambles".[5] Anna Gaca, writing for Pitchfork, called the song a "drama-free delight" with "magnetic pink glow".[6] The Spinoff pointed out that Swift's vocals in "Cruel Summer" are "most notable for the modern country cadence".[7]

Composition

"Cruel Summer" is predominantly a synth-pop song.[8][9][10] Critics described its production as melancholic[11] or dreamy.[12] Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times categorized the song as industrial pop,[13] and Ludovic Hunter-Tilney of the Financial Times dubbed it electropop.[14][15] It has a "ranting" bridge underscored by skittering synths,[3][7][16][17] distorted vocals[8] manipulated by a vocoder,[18] and a hook that consists of a long, high, fluctuating "ooooh".[19] The song has a fast tempo of 170 beats per minute with a time signature of 4
4
. It is played in the key of A major and follows a chord progression of A–Cm–Fm–D.[20][21] "Cruel Summer" was written by Swift, Jack Antonoff and St. Vincent,[22] with a "burbling" production from Swift and Antonoff;[5] St. Vincent also took part in the production of the song, playing the guitar.[23] Lyrically, the song is about "the agony and ecstasy of an anxious summer romance".[24] David Penn of Billboard opined, the song's vocals, instrumentation and lyrics work "in tandem to create a unified expression, a combination known as prosody."[25]

Release and commercial performance

Initial release

"Cruel Summer" was released as the second track on Lover, on August 23, 2019, via Republic Records.[26] The track originally charted as an album cut within the top 30 in Singapore (8),[27] Malaysia (13),[28] Ireland (20),[29] New Zealand (20),[30] Australia (23),[31] the United Kingdom (27),[32] and Canada (28).[33] In the United States, the song debuted at number 29 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated September 7, 2019; it is one of the seven tracks from Lover to reach the top 40[34] and remained on the chart for two weeks.[35] The song became a fan favorite over time[36][37] and critics and fans questioned Swift's decision over not having released "Cruel Summer" as a single.[38][39]

Resurgence

Swift singing onstage dressed in a sparkling bodysuite
"Cruel Summer" resurged in popularity after Swift included it in the set list of the Eras Tour in 2023.

Beginning March 2023, Swift embarked on the Eras Tour, her sixth headlining concert tour, as a tribute to all of her "musical eras".[40] The concerts begin with the Lover act, on which "Cruel Summer" is the second song performed.[39] The song resurged in popularity and streaming after it became viral on social media.[38][41] In the U.S., the single re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 49 on the chart dated June 3, 2023.[35] As a result, Republic Records released it as the fifth Lover single to US contemporary hit radio on June 20, 2023.[42] On June 17, at an Eras Tour concert in Pittsburgh, Swift said she had intended to release "Cruel Summer" as a single in 2020 during the promotional cycle for Lover, but she abandoned the plan after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and moved forward with detouring her artistic direction and releasing her next album, Folklore.[43][44]

After its single release, the song became Swift's 41st top-10 entry on the Hot 100, and extended her record as the woman with the most top-10 entries. It also became the fourth Lover track to enter the top-10, after "Me!", "You Need to Calm Down", and the title track all in 2019.[45] On airplay charts, "Cruel Summer" was Swift's 12th number-one single on the Pop Airplay chart and 11th number-one single on Adult Pop Airplay, making her the solo artist with the most chart toppers on both.[46][47] It spent 10 weeks atop Pop Airplay and eight weeks atop Adult Pop Airplay, becoming her longest-running number-one song on both the charts.[48] In early October 2023, it became Swift's eighth song to reach number one on the Radio Songs chart.[48] Commenting on the song's resurgent success, Jason Lipshutz of Billboard said, "a Lover track organically rising to new heights at the same time simply demonstrates Swift's current ubiquity, unprecedented in the modern music era."[49] After the release of the Eras Tour's accompanying concert film in theatres on October 12, a live recording of the song from the tour and a remix by LP Giobbi were released as part of a streaming compilation, titled The Cruelest Summer, on October 18.[50] "Cruel Summer" then topped the Hot 100, marking Lover's first and Swift's 10th number-one single in the US; the song skyrocketed in every metric, drawing 77.8 million airplay audience, 18.6 million streams on digital platforms, and 41,000 download sales.[51]

Elsewhere, "Cruel Summer" has reached new peaks in Canada (1),[52] Singapore (1),[53] Australia (2),[54] the UK (2),[55] New Zealand (3),[56] Malaysia (6),[57] and Ireland (12) as well.[58] It peaked at number one in the Philippines[59] and entered the top 10 in Indonesia[60] and Japan.[61] The song has received certifications from Denmark (gold),[62] Greece (gold),[63] Italy (gold),[64] New Zealand (double platinum),[56] Poland (gold),[65] Portugal (platinum),[66] and the UK (platinum).[67] It peaked at number two on the Billboard Global 200.[68]

Critical reception

In the reviews of Lover, "Cruel Summer" received rave comments from music critics, particularly for its production, bridge and hook. Jon Caramanica of The New York Times commended the "thick, ethereal" production and Swift's signature vocal motifs such as the "question-mark syllables" and the "hard-felt smears".[69] Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times proclaimed "Cruel Summer" to be the best song of Lover and said the bridge where Swift "shrieks about the devil might be the punkest thing you'll hear all year".[70] Alex Abad-Santos, writing for Vox, listed "Cruel Summer" as one of his top-three best Lover tracks, writing that the song is an "aquatic robot bop" featuring "wobbly" synths.[71] The Spinoff stated that Swift "absolutely pulls it off" and compared it to the Bananarama's 1984 song of the same name.[7] Writing for The Ringer, Justin Sayles praised the song as a "better rebuke of her personal drama than anything on her last album", and added that Swift "shakes off the bad vibes" with "Cruel Summer"; Sayles named it Swift's "most infectious song since that run of singles from 1989", and opined that song "sets the tone" for the "warmer, more inviting vibes" of Lover.[5] Also calling it "infectious", Nick Levine of NME termed the track as a "brilliant pop song".[72] Natalia Barr, writing for Consequence of Sound, highlighted Swift's vocal delivery in the song's bridge ("He looks up, grinning like a devil"), calling it "simultaneously funny, agonizing, and thrilling, and needs to be created into a viral YouTube loop immediately". Barr further labeled "Cruel Summer" as one of the "most perfect" pop songs of 2019.[73] "Cruel Summer" featured on year-end lists of the best songs of 2019 by Rolling Stone (4th)[74] and Billboard (10th).[75]

Retrospectively, "Cruel Summer" continued to receive acclaim, cited as the signature track of Lover. In a 2021 list ranking the best bridges of the 21st-century, Billboard placed "Cruel Summer" at number 11.[76] The song has ranked highly on critics' rankings of Swift's songs in her discography, appearing on such lists by Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone (2021) at number 11 out of 229,[77] and Hannah Mylrea of NME (2020), number 6 out of 161.[78] Clash critics picked the song as one of Swift's 15 best, citing its "highly addictive" song structure.[79] In 2022, Exclaim!'s Alex Hudson and Megan LaPierre ranked it second on another list of the best 20 songs by Swift, praising how St. Vincent's artistic input complements Swift's.[80] Allaire Nuss of Entertainment Weekly described it as a "buzzer-beating, angst-wielding anthem".[81] Brittany Spanos of Rolling Stone wrote in 2023, "Swift flaunts a rock-star edge alongside a grand sense of romantic urgency" in "Cruel Summer", making it one of her best songs.[38]

Track listing

Digital download and streaming

  1. "Cruel Summer" – 2:58

Streaming – The Cruelest Summer=

  1. "Cruel Summer" (Live from TS | The Eras Tour) – 3:48
  2. "Cruel Summer" (LP Giobbi remix) – 3:12
  3. "Cruel Summer" – 2:58

Digital download – Live from TS | The Eras Tour

  1. "Cruel Summer" (Live from TS | The Eras Tour) – 3:48

Digital download – LP Giobbi remix

  1. "Cruel Summer" (LP Giobbi remix) – 3:12

Usage in media

American singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo performed a cover of the song for MTV's Alone Together Jam Session in 2020, which Swift subsequently praised.[82] Rodrigo would later go on to interpolate the song in her 2021 single "Deja Vu", crediting Swift, Antonoff, and St. Vincent as co-writers on the song; the song peaked at number 3 on the U.S. Hot 100.[83] "Cruel Summer" was featured in the second season of Amazon Prime Video series The Summer I Turned Pretty in June 2022.[84]

Personnel

Credits are adapted from Tidal.[85]

Charts

Certifications

Certifications for "Cruel Summer"
Region Certification Certified units/sales
Denmark (IFPI Danmark)[62] Gold 45,000
Italy (FIMI)[64] Gold 50,000
New Zealand (RMNZ)[56] 2× Platinum 60,000
Poland (ZPAV)[65] Gold 25,000
Portugal (AFP)[66] Platinum 10,000
United Kingdom (BPI)[67] Platinum 600,000
Streaming
Greece (IFPI Greece)[63] Platinum 2,000,000

Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.
Streaming-only figures based on certification alone.

Release history

Release dates and formats for "Cruel Summer"
Region Date Format(s) Version Label(s) Ref.
United States June 20, 2023 Contemporary hit radio Original Republic [39]
Various October 18, 2023 Digital download
  • Live
  • LP Giobbi remix
[148]

See also

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