Meet the songs vying to be 2024’s summer anthem. Which one’s your favorite?

The contenders for this year’s song of the summer — from “Espresso” to “Million Dollar Baby” — are soaring up Billboard’s Hot 100, soundtracking videos online and inspiring us to work up a sweat offline.

You know a song of the summer when you hear it. It’s the song that drags you off the sidelines and onto the dancefloor. A song that sounds best when it’s being sung by the people you love, cups in hand, in sticky heat. It worms its way into your brain and stays there, and, even years later, takes you right back to the summer you first heard it. Songs of the summer, at their best, are sonic representations of the hottest months of the year, says Mike Errico, a songwriter and instructor at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. “They’re upbeat, extroverted, bright and fun, with a big, repeatable chorus that even the most musically challenged can join in on,” Errico tells CNN. “Being danceable is a big plus, because it can work on the beach in the day, or in the clubs at night.” Interestingly, most of these songs were released weeks or months before the first day of summer. And more than a few of them received a major boost from TikTok, where their catchiest 15 to 30 seconds have found a massive (and influential) audience. It was easier even a decade ago to settle on the song of the summer. “Blurred Lines” was inescapable in 2013; so was “Call Me Maybe” the year before. But there are fewer and fewer breakouts like those as monoculture shrinks — now, TikTok is perhaps the most influential decider of a song’s success, and with its ever-quickening trend cycle, it’s easy for songs even by major artists to get lost in the shuffle.