Initial reviews ofLover lauded "Cruel Summer" for its melodic composition andcatchy sound, specifically highlighting thehook andbridge; many deemed it a highlight on the album. Retrospective reviews have considered "Cruel Summer" one of Swift's best songs, and it was placed on the 2024 revision ofRolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. "Cruel Summer" debuted in the top 30 of various singles charts in 2019 and became a fan favorite over time, promptingfans and publications to question why Swift did not release the track as a single.
After being included in the set list of Swift's sixth concert tour,the Eras Tour, in 2023, "Cruel Summer" becameviral on social media, leadingRepublic Records to release it as a single on June 20, 2023. In the United States, the single peaked atop theBillboard Hot 100 for four weeks and helped Swift become the solo artist with the most number-one songs on thePop Airplay andAdult Pop Airplay radio charts. Elsewhere, it topped theBillboard Global 200 and the singles charts in Australia, Canada, the Philippines, and Singapore. The song has beencertified diamond in France and multi-platinum in Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom. On July 31, 2025, the song reached 3 billion streams onSpotify, making it her first song and the second solo song by a female artist to reach that milestone.
St. Vincent co-wrote and played guitar on "Cruel Summer".
Taylor Swift described her seventh studio album,Lover, as a "love letter to love" itself with all the feelings evoked by it.[1] The album was released on August 23, 2019, viaRepublic Records.[2]Lover consists of 18 tracks, and "Cruel Summer" is track number two.[3] According to Swift, the track is about an uncertain summer romance with elements of pain and desperation in it.[4] The relationship in question is "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".[4]
"Cruel Summer" is anelectropop,[5][6][7]synth-pop,[8][9][10]bubblegum pop,[11] andindustrial pop song.[12] Critics described its production as melancholic[13] or dreamy.[14] It has a "ranting"bridge underscored by skittering synths,[15][16][17][18] distorted vocals[8] manipulated by avocoder,[19] and a hook that consists of a long, high, fluctuating "ooooh".[20] The song has a fasttempo of 170 beats per minute with a time signature of4 4. It is played in the key ofA major and follows a chord progression of A–C♯m–F♯m–D.[21][22] Swift's vocals range from A2 to E5. "Cruel Summer" was written by Swift,Jack Antonoff andSt. Vincent,[23] with a "burbling" production from Swift and Antonoff;[24] St. Vincent also took part in the production of the song, playing the guitar.[25] Lyrically, the song is about "the agony and ecstasy of an anxious summer romance".[26] David Penn ofHit Songs Deconstructed opined, the song's vocals, instrumentation and lyrics work "in tandem to create a unified expression, a combination known asprosody."[27]
It portrays the challenges faced by pop stars in the public spotlight.[15] The vulnerability of the song's lyrics has drawn comparisons to "Delicate", the fifth track on Swift's 2017 albumReputation.[15]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".[28] Justin Styles ofThe 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 then-current boyfriendJoe Alwyn while her public life was in shambles".[24] Anna Gaca, writing forPitchfork, called the song a "drama-free delight" with "magnetic pink glow".[29]The Spinoff pointed out that Swift's vocals in "Cruel Summer" are "most notable for the moderncountry cadence".[16]
"Cruel Summer" was released as the second track onLover, on August 23, 2019, viaRepublic Records.[30] The track originally charted as an album cut within the top 30 in Singapore (8),[31] Malaysia (13),[32] Ireland (20),[33] New Zealand (20),[34] Australia (23),[35] the United Kingdom (27),[36] and Canada (28).[37] In the United States, the song debuted at number 29 on theBillboard Hot 100 dated September 7, 2019; it is one of the seven tracks fromLover to reach the top 40[38] and remained on the chart for two weeks.[39] The song became a widespread fan favorite over time[40][41] and critics and fans questioned Swift's decision over not having released "Cruel Summer" as a single.[42][43]
"Cruel Summer" resurged in popularity after Swift included it in the setlist ofthe Eras Tour in 2023.
Beginning March 2023, Swift embarked onthe Eras Tour, her sixth headlining concert tour, as a tribute to all of her "musical eras".[44] The show begins with theLover act, during which "Cruel Summer" is the second song performed.[43] Around this time, the song began to resurge in popularity andstreaming after it became viral on social media.[42][45] In the U.S., the single re-entered theBillboard Hot 100 at number 49 on the chart dated June 3, 2023.[39] It began gaining airplay spins on US radio by mid-June,[46] leading Republic Records to release it as a single to UScontemporary hit radio on June 20, 2023.[43][47] The song also impactedhot adult contemporary radio on June 26.[48] On June 17, at an Eras Tour show inPittsburgh, Swift said she had intended to release "Cruel Summer" as a single in 2020 during the promotional cycle forLover but she abandoned the plan after the outbreak of theCOVID-19 pandemic, instead shifting her artistic direction and releasing her next album,Folklore.[47][49]
"Cruel Summer" became Swift's record-extending 41st song to reach the top 10 on theBillboard Hot 100 and the fourthLover track to do so.[50] After the release of the Eras Tour'saccompanying concert film, a live recording of the song and a remix byLP Giobbi were released as part of a streaming compilation, titledThe Cruelest Summer, on October 18, 2023.[51] "Cruel Summer" topped theBillboard Hot 100, markingLover's first and Swift's 10th number-one single.[52] It was replaced by, and in turn replaced, Swift's "Is It Over Now?" atop the Hot 100 for one week,[53] spending a total of four non-consecutive weeks at number one and making Swift the first female artist to succeed herself at the top spot twice and thrice.[54][55]
On USBillboard airplay charts in 2023, "Cruel Summer" became Swift's eighth number-one single onRadio Songs, where it reigned for 12 non-consecutive weeks surpassing "Blank Space" as her longest running number one.[56] It became her 12th number-one single onPop Airplay, and her 11th number-one single onAdult Pop Airplay, making her the solo artist with the most chart toppers on the latter two charts.[57][58] The song also spent 10 weeks atop Pop Airplay and 23 weeks atop Adult Pop Airplay, becoming her longest-running number-one song on both[56] and the longest-running number-one song by a solo artist and female artist on the latter.[55][59] Jason Lipshutz ofBillboard commented that the single's resurgent success "simply demonstrates Swift's current ubiquity, unprecedented in the modern music era".[60] In January 2024, the song topped theAdult Contemporary chart, marking Swift's ninth number-one single. As such, it made Swift the first artist in history to release six singles that topped the Adult Contemporary, Adult Pop Airplay and Pop Airplay charts individually, surpassingAdele (five).[59] Additionally, the song spent 34 weeks in the top ten of the Hot 100, becoming the first song by a solo female artist to do so.[61] In total, "Cruel Summer" spent 54 weeks on the Hot 100, becoming Swift's longest-charting Hot 100 hit, surpassing "Anti-Hero".[62]
Elsewhere, "Cruel Summer" reached new peaks in Australia (1),[63] Canada (1),[64] Singapore (1),[65] New Zealand (3),[66] Ireland (4),[67] Malaysia (6),[68] and Brazil (54) as well.[69] It peaked at number one in the Philippines[70] and entered the top 10 in Indonesia, as well in few Europeans countries, including Switzerland and Iceland, top twenty for most of them, including Norway, Sweden, Austria, Portugal, the Netherlands and Luxembourg and top forty in Denmark and Slovakia.[71]In France, from the general surprise, due to massive broadcasting radio plays, the song didn't reached the top fifty and reached number 52. However, the song spent 55 weeks and peaked at number 9 on French airplay and was certified diamond, becoming Swift fifth diamond single at the time.[72]The song has receivedcertifications from Denmark (gold),[73] Greece (gold),[74] Italy (platinum),[75] New Zealand (triple platinum),[66] Poland (double platinum),[76] Portugal (triple platinum),[77] and the UK (triple platinum).[78] It reached number one on theBillboard Global 200,[79] and was the sixth-most-streamed song globally onSpotify in 2023.[80] The song was the seventh-biggest song of 2023 according to theInternational Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), with an equivalent of 1.39 billion global subscription streams.[81] Within the first half of 2024, according toLuminate Data, the single was the third-most-streamed song globally with 1.012 billion streams.[82]
St. Vincent described the resurgent success of "Cruel Summer" as "crazy": "I mean, I always thought in the context of that record, like, 'That should be a single, it's a great song.' And I don't even think it was a single; it just was a fan favorite. And it's like the fans just decided: 'No, this is your hit song.' Which is so wild and so modern, you know."[83]
In reviews ofLover, "Cruel Summer" received rave reviews from music critics, particularly for its production, bridge and hook.Jon Caramanica ofThe 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".[84] Mikael Wood of theLos Angeles Times proclaimed "Cruel Summer" to be the best song ofLover and said the bridge where Swift "shrieks about the devil might be the punkest thing you'll hear all year".[85] Alex Abad-Santos, writing forVox, listed "Cruel Summer" as one of his top-three bestLover tracks, writing that the song is an "aquatic robot bop" featuring "wobbly" synths.[86]The Spinoff stated that Swift "absolutely pulls it off" and compared it toBananarama's1983 song of the same name.[16] Writing forThe 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 from1989", and opined that song "sets the tone" for the "warmer, more inviting vibes" ofLover.[24] Also calling it "infectious", Nick Levine ofNME termed the track as a "brilliant pop song".[87] Natalia Barr, writing forConsequence, 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 viralYouTube loop immediately". Barr further labeled "Cruel Summer" as one of the "most perfect" pop songs of 2019.[88] "Cruel Summer" featured on year-end lists of the best songs of 2019 byRolling Stone (4th)[89] andBillboard (10th).[90]
Retrospectively, "Cruel Summer" continued to receive high acclaim, and has been deemed the signature track ofLover. In a 2021 list ranking the best bridges of the 21st-century,Billboard placed "Cruel Summer" at number 11.[91] The song has ranked highly on critics' rankings of Swift's songs in her discography, appearing on such lists byRob Sheffield ofRolling Stone (2021) at number 11 out of 229,[92] and Hannah Mylrea ofNME (2020), number 6 out of 161.[93]Clash critics picked the song as one of Swift's 15 best, citing its "highly addictive"song structure.[94] 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.[95] Allaire Nuss ofEntertainment Weekly described it as a "buzzer-beating, angst-wielding anthem".[96] Brittany Spanos ofRolling 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.[42]Billboard opined in 2023 that "Cruel Summer" is both a fan and a critics' favorite.[97] In 2024,Rolling Stone ranked the song at number 400 in their updated list of the500 Greatest Songs of All Time.[98]
American singer-songwriterOlivia Rodrigo performed the song forMTV'sAlone Together Jam Session in 2020, which Swift subsequently praised.[103]
Rodrigo later stated that "Cruel Summer" partially inspired her 2021 single "Deja Vu", eventually crediting Swift, Antonoff, and St. Vincent as co-writers; it peaked at number three on the U.S. Hot 100.[104]
It was one of Swift's songs used in a November 2023 episode of the Americandance competition television showDancing with the Stars, which was a tribute episode in honor of Swift; American television personalityAriana Madix and dance choreographer Pasha Pashkov performed arumba to a rendition of the song.[107]
Australian singerG Flip covered the song forTriple J'sLike a Version in January 2024.[108] The performance received widespread acclaim, and Swift showed her appreciation by liking Triple J'sInstagram post about the cover. She also reached out to G Flip privately, expressing her admiration for the cover.[109]
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