Call it, maybe: Why no single tune felt like 2016’s song of the summer

After three of the weirdest, most discombobulating months in recent American history, summer officially ends Wednesday — though it may not feel like it given the steamy weather in Los Angeles and the fact we’re still nowhere near the end of this divisive election cycle. And for 2016, the statistics seem to provide a clear picture: Drake’s “One Dance” was the song of the summer. In comparison, Buli said, “there wasn’t one song this year where you were like, ‘I’ve heard it so many times I want to gag.’” Drake certainly tried. Built on an appealingly rinky-dink beat Desiigner purchased from a guy online, “Panda” first picked up heat on the Internet, then went wide after Kanye West sampled the song on his album “The Life of Pablo.” Calvin Harris featuring Rihanna, “This Is What You Came For” The Scottish EDM star struck Top 40 gold when he paired with Rihanna for 2011’s “We Found Love.” And though this sequel — which Harris co-wrote with his ex-girlfriend, Taylor Swift — fails to summon the same stadium-rave intensity, “This Is What You Came For” offers more or less what’s advertised: a syncopated club beat, a sexy-cool vocal and a lyric designed to be chopped into digital smithereens. Twenty One Pilots, “Ride” One of the few putative rock acts in the mix for song of the summer, this Ohio duo crashed Spotify’s season-end tally with “Ride,” a grungy reggae jam in which frontman Tyler Joseph describes thinking “about the end just way too much.” It’s a goth-punk idea dressed up in mega-pop threads — and a good example of the left-field summer song.