Taylor Swift on ‘Cruel Summer’ Becoming a Single Four Years After Its Release: ‘No One Understands How This Is Happening’
Taylor Swift revealed which one of her former hit songs will be her next single during her concert in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Saturday.
While performing at her latest stop on The Eras Tour, the 33-year-old songstress stopped to confirm that she will be re-releasing Cruel Summer from her 2019 studio album, Lover.
The singer-songwriter said she had previously intended to release 'my favorite song' as a single in the summer of 2020.
The Midnights hitmaker — whose father made $15.1 million from the controversial sale of her catalog to Scooter Braun in 2019 — explained that because of the pandemic, the plans were halted.
Now, with the song rising in the streaming charts, she announced that her record label made the decision to make Cruel Summer her next single.
Taylor Swift took a minute before singing “Champagne Problems” to take things back a few eras Saturday night (June 17) at Pittsburgh’s Acrisure Stadium.
“The weirdest, most magical thing is happening,” Swift said from the Eras Tour stage. “It’s never happened to me in the whole time I’ve ever been doing this.”
“‘Cruel Summer’ is a song, I just played it a second ago. I don’t know if you remember. We had a blast, yeah? The one with the bridge where we all screamed,” she reminded fans, referring to the opening Lover section of her live set.
“‘Cruel Summer’ was on the Lover album. That album came out four years ago. And I just need to let you know something: ‘Cruel Summer,’ that song was my pride and joy on that album,” she said of the track featured on her 2019 album, a song that also happens to be a longtime fan-favorite.
Swift explained, “You have conversations before the album comes out. Everybody around weighs in on what they think should be singles. I was finally, finally about to have my favorite song become the single — off of Lover.”
But before summer 2020, which would have been a logical time to drop a cathartic summer anthem, came COVID-19. “I’m not trying to blame the global pandemic that we had,” Swift said, “but that is something that happened that stopped ‘Cruel Summer’ from ever being a single.”
She continued, “No one understands how this is happening, but you guys have streamed ‘Cruel Summer’ so much right now in 2023” that Republic Records, her label, “just decided to make it the next single.”
Billboard confirmed the news on Friday that Republic will officially start promoting “Cruel Summer” to pop radio stations as of Tuesday, June 20, while continuing to promote Midnights single “Karma.”
“Cruel Summer” returned to the Billboard Hot 100 dated June 3, after it spent two weeks on the chart in September 2019. On the June 17 Hot 100, it ranks at No. 47, with 9.6 million official streams, 2.6 million radio airplay audience impressions and 1,500 downloads sold in the United States June 2-8, according to Luminate.
“Thank you to anyone who’s been listening to that song like 500 times a day,” Swift joked in Pittsburgh.
'So basically, Cruel Summer was on the Lover album,' the Pennsylvania native began. 'That album came out four years ago.'
'And I just need to let you know something,' she continued. 'Cruel Summer — that song was my pride and joy on that album. That was my favorite song.'
'You have conversations before the album comes out and everyone around weighs in on what they think should be singles and I was finally about to have my favorite song become the single off of Lover,' she explained.
She added: 'And I'm not trying to blame the global pandemic that we had, but that is something that happened that stopped Cruel Summer from ever being a single.'
Then, the multi-Grammy winner expressed her gratitude to her loyal fans in helping her grant her wish.
Swift continued: 'So what's happening right now — thanks to you — and honestly, no one understands how this is happening, but you guys have, like, streamed Cruel Summer so much right now in 2023 that it's, like, at the top.
'It's rising on the streaming charts so crazy,' she said. 'And my label just decided to make it the next single.'
'It's truly, truly perplexing to me because I just haven't had something like this happen in my career,' she added. 'So thank you to anyone who has been listening to that song like 500 times a day because that is my favorite one.'
“Thank you to anyone who’s been listening to that song like 500 times a day,” Swift joked. See latest videos, charts and news “‘Cruel Summer’ is a song, I just played it a second ago. I don’t know if you remember.
We had a blast, yeah? The one with the bridge where we all screamed,” she reminded fans, referring to the opening
Lover section of her live set. “‘Cruel Summer’ was on the Lover album. That album came out four years ago. And I just need to let you know something: ‘Cruel Summer,’ that song was my pride and joy on that album,” she said of the track featured on her 2019 album, a song that also happens to be a longtime fan-favorite.
Swift explained, “You have conversations before the album comes out. Everybody around weighs in on what they think should be singles. I was finally, finally about to have my favorite song become the single
Source:
— off of headtopics.com