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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Entertainment
Sam Wolfson

The song of the summer is … nothing? Why 2025’s charts are so stale

SZA, wearing a red leather outfit, sings into a microphone while Kendrick Lamar, wearing a sports jacket, stands behind her on stage
SZA and Kendrick Lamar has the most streamed song of 2025 so far with Luther, which came out in 2024. Photograph: George Walker IV/AP

A spectre is haunting America – the spectre of Shaboozey.

Despite it coming out in April 2024, Shaboozey’s huge hit A Bar Song (Tipsy) is still, billions of streams later, at No 5 on this week’s Billboard chart. Its country-tinged refrain of “everybody at the bar gettin’ tipsy,” an interpolation from J-Kwon 2004 hit Tipsy, has stuck around well past closing time.

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