"Cool for the Summer" is a song by American singer Demi Lovato. It was released as the lead single from her fifth studio album Confident (2015) on July 1, 2015, by Hollywood Records and Island Records, and premiered on radio on the same date via Republic Records. Lovato co-wrote "Cool for the Summer" with Alexander Erik Kronlund, Savan Kotecha, and its producers Max Martin and Ali Payami. It is an electropop and pop rock song with an electronic instrumental arrangement, a synthesized beat and an electric-guitar riff during the chorus.
"Cool for the Summer" was included in several year-end lists and received nominations for MTV Video Music Awards and 2015 Teen Choice Awards in the category Song of the Summer. It also received an award for being one of the most-performed songs of 2015 at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards. Commercially, "Cool for the Summer" reached number-one in Greece and Israel and reached the top ten in the Czech Republic, Lebanon, New Zealand, Scotland, and the United Kingdom. The song also peaked within the top 20 in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Slovakia, and the United States.
A music video for the song was directed by Hannah Lux Davis and was released on Vevo on July 23, 2015. The video was positively received; publications praised Lovato's sultriness and artistic growth. To promote the song, Lovato performed it at pool parties a few days after its release, and on several television programs such as The Voice Australia, Sunrise, the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards and Jimmy Kimmel Live. The singer also performed the song in a medley with "Confident" on Saturday Night Live during the show's forty-first season. Wearing a T-shirt featuring an inclusive bathroom symbol, Lovato showed her support for the LGBTQ community and demonstrated against North Carolina's anti-LGBT bathroom bill during her performance of "Cool for the Summer" at the 2016 Billboard Music Awards on May 22, 2016. She also included the song on the set lists for the Future Now Tour (2016), Tell Me You Love Me World Tour (2018), and Holy Fvck Tour (2022).
Due to a resurgence of the song on TikTok in March 2022, the song re-peaked in several countries worldwide, reaching number-one on the global Shazam chart and debuting on the Billboard Global 200 chart. In response to the song going viral, Lovato released a sped-up version of the song on April 1, 2022. A re-recorded rock version of the song was released on May 25, 2023, and was included on her first remix album Revamped (2023).
Composition and release Demi Lovato co-wrote "Cool for the Summer" with Alexander Erik Kronlund, Savan Kotecha, and its producers Ali Payami and Max Martin—who also handled programming. It was recorded at MXM Studios in Los Angeles (USA) and Wolf Cousins Studios in Stockholm, Sweden. The song was mixed by Serban Ghenea and mastered by Tom Coyne. Payami played the guitars, percussion, and keyboards. Lovato said the track is "an awesome representation of where I'm headed", and "I think for so many years, I cared too much about what people thought. Now I can just be who I am. I can be open." She told Elvis Duran in a radio interview: "After kind of being put in a corner of talking about so many things in my past, I just want to talk about sexy time and fun things!" On June 25, 2015, Lovato announced that "Cool for the Summer" would be released on July 1 that year. The song was leaked the day before its official release.
"Cool for the Summer" runs for 3 minutes and 34 seconds. It is an electropop and pop rock song with a rock edge and an electronic pop rock arrangement running through a synthesized beat with electric guitar riffs. NME editor Nick Levine praised the song's style, describing it as a "massive EDM-tinged-tinged pop banger with lyrics hinting at an exploratory same-sex tryst". According to Lovato, "'Cool for the Summer' is basically your go-to party anthem song. It's definitely more grown up than my other singles I've released. It's sexy, it's fun." She later said she could "kind of bring attention to people's sexuality, taking away the stigma and the shame of wanting to try things", and called the track a "sexy pop song" that could "inspire people to be themselves". Lovato added, "I know it was an awesome journey for me to be able to put that out in front of the world and not feel ashamed about it."
The song's theme is sexual experimentation with a female lover during summertime; it was noted for being more sexually suggestive than Lovato's previous releases, garnering comparisons with Katy Perry's song "I Kissed a Girl". Tharadjyne Orisma of United Press International wrote that the song "makes some pretty racy suggestions". The track's ambient production consists of a melodic piano introduction, which is followed by a buzzing synth beat accompanied by guitar riffs in the chorus. According to the sheet music published by Kobalt Music Publishing America, Inc on the website Musicnotes.com, "Cool for the Summer" is in the key of C minor and is set in a time signature at a moderate tempo of 114 beats per minute. On the recording, Lovato's vocal range spans from the low note of B3 to the high note of F5, while the music follows the chord progression of Amaj7 – Fm – Cm – E/B.
Critical reception Following its release, Lovato was accused of copying Jessie J's song "Domino" and Katy Perry's song "I Kissed a Girl"; the lyrics "It's okay/I'm a little curious too/Tell me if it's wrong/If it's right/I don't care ... Got a taste for the cherry/I just need to take a bite" were compared to the theme of Perry's "I Kissed a Girl", which was also co-written by Max Martin. In response, Lovato stated the songs sounded unalike, saying, "I think more than one female artist can kiss a girl and like it". Yasmeen Gharnit of Nylon magazine called the song "a blatantly summer song" that has "boisterous, cinematic instrumentals and synth beat" that distract from "some straight-out-of-your-middle-school-diary lyrics". Jason Lipshutz of Billboard gave the song a rating of four-and-a-half stars out of five, calling it Lovato's "most self-assured statement to date". Idolator gave it an average rating of 7.5 out of 10, writing, "from the hook-filled production to the tongue-in-cheek lyrics, it only takes one listen to know that 'Cool for the Summer' is going to be huge".
Nolan Feeney of Time stated that "Lovato's sultry vocals and producer Max Martin's Midas touch melt the track's air-conditioned synths into a sweltering, rock-infused banger". Writing for New York, Dee Lockett called it "the most perfectly manufactured Song of Summer maybe ever". Annie Zaleskie from the website The A.V. Club called the song an "unstoppable hit" and described it as "an icy rush of electro-pop seduction in praise of fleeting romance". In a review of the song's parent album Confident, Yu Tsai of USA Today praised the lyrics, writing; "Lovato has long-infused her brand of pop with rock 'n' roll grit, heard here and on the electric-guitar riffs of first single 'Cool For The Summer'. While its limp attempts at being provocative emit little heat ... [the track] is still one of the catchier songs on the album, whose other potential radio hits are harder to identify." Newsdays Glen Gambo gave a positive review to the song's production; he is one of several critics who compared the song to Perry's work produced by Max Martin. Unlike other critics, Gambo noted the similarity to another song recorded by Perry, writing that on "Cool for the Summer", Martin builds a "sleek, shiny backdrop" similar to that of Perry's "Teenage Dream" (2010) for Lovato, who uses it to "advocate for sexual experimentation in the name of a good time".
Recognition
"Cool for the Summer" was included on several year-end lists. Spin ranked the song at number 101; the magazine's editor Jia Tolentino wrote; "From that first icy, neon piano riff, 'Cool For the Summer' feels like a Miami drag race in an '80s dream, with a muscular force in Demi's chorus that makes those sweet, girlish verses seem like a lie you'd tell your parents just before you'd sneak out of the house". In Village Voices 2015 "Pazz & Jop" mass critics' poll of the year's best music, "Cool for the Summer" was tied at number 29 with three other songs. Stereogums Chris DeVille considered it the 23rd-best song of the year, writing that "the parade of undeniable hooks on 'Cool For The Summer' got Lovato's next chapter off on the right foot". Lewis Corner of Digital Spy also included the song on his end-of-year list, placing it at number 16. He also commented on the song's impact in Lovato career, describing it as "a breezy, dusky pop serenade, that ramps up with husky guitars before it ends. It's a surprising switch-up, but one that has every potential to see Demi's global profile shine even more." "Cool for the Summer" has received two award nominations; in August 2015, it was nominated for Choice Summer Song at the Teen Choice Awards, and for Song of Summer at the MTV Video Music Awards. On April 27, 2016, the song received an award at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards for being one of the most-performed songs of 2015. Billboard and American Songwriter both named "Cool for the Summer" as Lovato's second-greatest song.
In 2018, NPR ranked the track as the 198th greatest song performed by women and non-binary artists in the 21st century. In 2022, Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers of Las Culturistas ranked the song number 1 in their 300 Songs of the Great Global Songbook.
Chart performance North America In the United States, "Cool for the Summer" debuted at number 36 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated July 18, 2015, with opening sales of 80,000 copies. In its second week on the chart, the song rose to number 28, becoming Lovato's first top-thirty hit since "Really Don't Care" (2014). In the same week, the song was also ranked at number 15 on Digital Songs with sales of 108,000; and at number 40 on Radio Songs, prompted by a 29-percent increase in the radio audience that week to 36 million. The release of its lyric video on July 7, 2015, also prompted a gain of 185 percent in US streams to 2.4 million, the second-largest advance on the chart that week behind Fetty Wap's song "679". On the August 1, 2015, chart, the song slipped from its number 28 high to number 31 on the Hot 100 but continued to gain radio audience and streams. It climbed from number 40 to number 25 on Radio Songs—45 million, up 25 percent—and debuted on Streaming Songs at number 41 with 3.3 million US streams, up 41 percent. After the released of the music video on July 23, 2015, "Cool For the Summer" rose from number 31 to number 24 on August 8, 2015, becoming Lovato's highest charting position since "Heart Attack" (2013).
The song climbed from 24 to number 19 on the Hot 100 chart issued on August 15, 2015, and from number 18 to number 12 on the Digital Songs chart with sales of 63,000 downloads (up 17 percent) in the week ending July 30, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It climbed from number 31 to number 18 on Streaming Songs—6.6 million US streams, up 49 percent—and rose from number 22 to number 18 on Radio Songs with 56 million audience impressions, a rise of nine percent. "Cool for the Summer" later peaked at number 11 on the Hot 100.
On the Dance Club Songs chart, "Cool for the Summer" reached number one in its fifth week; its climb from number five to number one was the quickest on that chart since Lady Gaga's song "Applause", which in October 2013 also reached number one in five weeks. On September 23, 2016, "Cool for the Summer" was certified Double Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting sales and streams of two million copies in the US. On the Canadian Hot 100, the single entered the chart at number 50, peaked at number 14, and was certified platinum by Music Canada for Canadian sales of 80,000 copies. , "Cool for the Summer" has sold over 995,000 digital downloads in the United States.
Europe and Australia