Lorde on the “closest we came” to have a ‘song of the summer’ for 2025

Lorde has shared the track that she thinks was the “closest we came” to having a ‘song of the summer’ for 2025.

The New Zealand hitmaker opened up about what tracks she has been listening to this year in a new interview with The New Yorker, and said that she thinks the song that deserves the most praise is Justin Bieber’s track ‘Daisies’.

Suggesting that there hasn’t been one clear ‘song of the summer’ in 2025, she celebrated the track from the Canadian pop star as being the “closest we came”.

“It ticked all the boxes for me,” she said, adding: “It has to be flirty!”

The song was dropped earlier this year as the lead single on his ‘Swag’ album – the introspective follow-up record to 2021’s ‘Justice‘, which Bieber surprise released over the summer.

When told by the outlet that a lot of fans consider her single ‘What Was That’ to be the song that defined their summer soundtracks, Lorde shared that she wasn’t convinced.

“I should be so lucky as to make a song of the summer,” she said. “I don’t think I really make that type of music, but maybe I do. I’m happy to leave that to others.”

Elsewhere in The New Yorker piece, other famous faces explained what they considered to be their own ‘song of the summer’, with Stranger Things star Sadie Sink giving Lady Gaga her flowers for the track ‘How Bad Do U Want Me?’.

While there was no one track that people collectively agreed was the single that defined summer 2025, Billboard reports that if it were based on chart placement alone, Alex Warren’s ‘Ordinary’ would be crowned winner. The single spent 10 weeks at the Number One spot on the Billboard Hot 100 this year.

Earlier this year, NME also highlighted how, while 2024 had top runners like all of Charli XCX’s ‘Brat’ album, Chappell Roan’s ‘Good Luck, Babe!’, Shaboozey’s ‘A Bar Song (Tipsy)’ Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Espresso’, 2025 summer anthems were less clear cut.

Sharing the top picks from NME to be considered song of the summer, we highlighted tracks like Fontaines D.C.’s ‘It’s Amazing To Be Young’, Haims’ ‘Relationships’, and Katseye’s ‘Gnarly’ as contenders, as well as songs from Turnstile, Wet Leg, PinkPantheress and more.