Was 2025 a Summer of Nothing? Or of Everything

From ‘suckin' on a chili dog’ to ‘making love to his tonic and gin,’ even the biggest hits from our favorite artists can feature lyrical turns that make us feel quizzical, offended, or even downright nauseated. Sam joins Nate and Charlie, hosts of the Vulture music podcast Switched on Pop, to plumb the depths of the worst pop lyrics of all time — culled from hundreds of listener submissions — to categorize, historicize, and, perhaps, celebrate the art of the lyrical faux pas.

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Good morning and happy weekend! As a special treat, we’re sharing an episode of a podcast I love in our feed today. Switched On Pop has been my favorite music pod for years now. So I was more than honored when the show's hosts, Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding, asked me to come on for a very special episode all about BAD lyrics. A time was had, and the band Train was discussed not just once, but twice, for two songs that made our worst-lyrics-of-all-time list. Check out the ep to hear that and more, including my rant against the chorus of “Empire State of Mind.”

In other news, as summer wraps up, can I point you to a think piece I can’t stop thinking about? Over at Vox, Alex Abad-Santos wrote a story called “The Exhausting Summer of Nothing 2025.” In it, he argues that America’s general inability to settle on a song of the summer this year (Not me. As I said last week, my pick is “Boots On the Ground”) speaks to a larger reality: it’s not just the lack of a unifying song. As the monoculture continues to fade away, Summer 2025 became a season in which nothing really united us.

“This summer, the only real shared theme was our unstoppable apathy,” writes Abad-Santos. He says this summer wasn’t about things we loved; it was just everyone building a big list of all the things we hated. “Whether it was Dubai Chocolate, pickles, West Village Girls, ChatGPT and AI, the $19 Erewhon strawberry, or Sydney Sweeney’s jeans, everything we talked about this summer (and for the past year) seemed to be fueled by disdain.”

It’s a very hot take, and you know I love those. But I have to admit, the more I think about it, the more I think Alex is on to something. Just take movies. I thought about the horror film Sinners from earlier this year, as well as the recent horror box office hit Weapons. These two movies could have united the culture in some really big ways, but it felt like neither of them did? In spite of both films’ incredible box office takes, neither of them gave the last few months anything that felt like our Barbie-core/Oppenheimer/Barbenheimer summer of 2023. And is as big of a phenomenon as KPop Demon Hunters (the animated Netflix film with a made up band that has real songs topping the billboard charts) has become, either you’re obsessed with it, or it’s not on your radar at all.

An Instagram account called byoooooob wrote about this phenomenon as well. They posit that there was no flavor of the summer, no anthem of the summer, and no film of the summer, and that culture now was a pull, instead of a push. “There used to be a time when culture happened to you,” they wrote. “Culture was a broadcast. And participation was mandatory.” That’s been replaced by a pop culture in which you curate your own likes, and the algorithms just amplify that. You’re building your own personalized pop culture, not tapping into a larger one, unless you want to. byooooob calls it playlist culture. “It’s a playlist,” they wrote. “And you’re the DJ… You’re not being told what’s in. You’re selecting what you like.”

I’d argue something in between. Even though big trends are less likely to DOMINATE everyone’s summers — even though we all build our own pop culture playlists these days — some things are so omnipresent, some waves so big, that we can’t escape them, because they find their way into pop culture through various entry points. For instance, I think the culture is moving towards a more conservative, family-oriented space, showcasing more “traditional” gender roles and ideas of family and community. And it’s happening in several places and spaces at the same time. You can see it in the rise of (straight) male-dominated podcasting, the success of Netflix shows like Leanne, or the rise of country music on the pop charts. Lana Del Rey is a pointed country example. She’s not just making more traditional music — she’s aesthetically leaned into performing the role of traditional wife. You can also see it in the rise of trad wives on social media, and the success of reality shows like The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. This isn’t a big monoculture trend, but instead a cultural shift manifest through a certain type of subtle osmosis, in several different parts of the culture, at the same time.

And even if Sinners and Weapons didn’t dominate the culture the way Barbie or Oppenhiemer did two summers ago, they are part of a larger cultural wave, too. In the last few years, horror has become maybe the most bankable and culturally resonant genre in theatrical film. Both Sinners and Weapons are message films as well. Sinners is a mediation on race and cultural appropriation, and Weapons is making some very big points about gun violence in America's schools. Even if we haven’t noticed, horror’s rise says a lot about where we all are now and what culture we want to see reflect our current realities. We’re in a negative space, and the rise and continued success of horror proves that, even if one specific horror film doesn’t become a dominating trend of any particular season.

Monoculture may be dying, but we can all still be pushed and pulled through pop culture, whether we realize it or not, even if we think we’re absorbing it all through little algorithm-fed isolation bubbles. Let’s call it osmosis culture? Pop culture osmosis? IDK. Just spitballing here. I’ll keep workshopping.

In the meantime, lemme know your thoughts on all of this. Did your summer feel like a summer of nothing? Do you feel like you’re taking part in any larger cultural trends in 2025? Lemme know! I may try to write something a little more definitive on this idea of pop culture through osmosis pretty soon. I’d love to incorporate others' thoughts.

Alright, with that, enjoy your holiday weekend! And maybe go see Weapons if you haven’t yet.

— Sam