Harry Styles’ ‘As It Was’ Claims Crown on Billboard’s 2022 Songs of the Summer Chart
Harry Styles‘ “As It Was” wraps as the top title on Billboard‘s 2022 Songs of the Summer chart.
The 20-position Songs of the Summer running tally tracks the most popular titles based on cumulative performance on the weekly streaming-, airplay- and sales-based Billboard Hot 100 chart from Memorial Day through Labor Day (this year encompassing charts dated June 11 through Sept. 10).
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“As It Was,” a 12-week No. 1, and counting, on the Hot 100 – and Styles’ first seasonal victory on the annual Songs of the Summer survey – takes top honors on the 2022 Songs of the Summer chart over Lizzo’s “About Damn Time” (No. 2); Jack Harlow’s “First Class” (No. 3); Future’s “Wait for U,” featuring Drake and Tems (No. 4); and Kate Bush’s Stranger Things-boosted “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” (No. 5).
Rounding out the 2022 Songs of the Summer top 10: Bad Bunny and Chencho Corleone’s “Me Porto Bonito” (No. 6); Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves” (No. 7); Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul” (No. 8); Styles’ “Late Night Talking” (No. 9), his follow-up single to “As It Was”; and Bad Bunny’s “Tití Me Preguntó” (No. 10).
With Styles’ “As It Was” and “Late Night Talking” both from his LP Harry’s House, and Bad Bunny’s “Me Porto Bonito” and “Tití Me Preguntó” from his Un Verano Sin Ti release, 2022 marks the third consecutive year that an album has generated two entries in a season-ending Songs of the Summer top 10 – and the first year in which two albums have each contributed two such titles. Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour was represented by “Good 4 U” (No. 2) and “Deja Vu” (No. 7) last year, while Styles’ own Fine Line yielded “Watermelon Sugar” (No. 6) and “Adore You” (No. 10) in 2021. (In 2018, Drake boasted a single-year record three top 10s from his album Scorpion: “In My Feelings,” “Nice for What” and “God’s Plan,” at Nos. 1, 4 and 6, respectively.)
Plus, thanks to Harry’s House and Fine Line, Styles is the first artist with multiple albums that have each spun off two season-closing top 10 singles on the Songs of the Summer chart.
As for the top titles this summer in each of the Hot 100’s, and the Songs of the Summer chart’s, three metrics, Lizzo’s “About Damn Time” was the most-heard on radio (1.1 billion audience impressions, according to Luminate, as reflected on charts dated June 11 through Sept. 10); Future’s “Wait for U” was the most-streamed (304.1 million); and Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” was the most-sold (162,000). (“As It Was” placed at No. 2 in airplay, No. 4 in streaming and No. 7 in sales in that span.)
Notably, “As It Was” topped the Songs of the Summer chart each week this year. It’s the third song in the last four years to sweep a season, following BTS’ “Butter” in 2021 and Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, in 2019 – with all three singles released on Columbia Records.
Meanwhile, variety returned to the Songs of the Summer top 10 this year. The 2021 top 10 was dominated by pop songs, as of last year’s 10 titles, only two appeared on any of Billboard‘s genre-based weekly song charts that use the same methodology (Justin Bieber’s Peaches,” featuring Daniel Caesar and Giveon, and Sink Sonic’s “Leave the Door Open,” both of which hit No. 1 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs).
This year, “About Damn Time,” “First Class,” “Wait for U” and “Break My Soul” all led Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs; “Running Up That Hill” and “Heat Waves” both ruled Hot Rock & Alternative Songs; and “Me Porto Bonito” topped Hot Latin Songs and “Tití Me Preguntó” reached No. 2 on that tally. In a year-to-year reversal, of 2022’s top 10 Songs of the Summer hits, just two did not place on a genre-based multi-metric chart: Styles’ pure-pop “As It Was” and “Late Night Talking.”
2022 is, thus, more on par with the rest of the five previous years aside from 2021. In both 2020 and 2019, seven of the top 10 Songs of the Summer hits appeared on weekly multi-metric genre charts, after eight did in 2018 and nine did in 2017.
Plus, three of the 20 biggest hits this summer were released over a year – or even decades – earlier. “Running Up That Hill” was originally released in 1985 (and hit No. 30 on the Hot 100 that November); “Heat Waves” arrived in June 2020, and completed a record 59-week climb to No. 1 on the Hot 100 this March; and, below the 2022 Songs of the Summer top 10, The Kid LAROI and Bieber’s “Stay” finishes at No. 14, after the song, released in July 2021, wrapped at No. 10 on the 2021 Songs of the Summer chart. (Last year, “Heat Waves” was the No. 20 title for the summer and The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” placed at No. 16 after ranking at No. 2 for 2020; previously, no hits appeared on multiple season-ending Songs of the Summer charts.)
Check out the top 10 summer songs every year throughout the Hot 100’s history (from the chart’s start in 1958) and the season-ending 2022 Songs of the Summer survey in its entirety. Plus, relieve the 500 biggest warm-weather hits from over the past six decades-plus on the Greatest of All Time Songs of the Summer retrospective in the charts menu on Billboard.com.
