Theme
Songs about desire
Interpretations from our editorial team that explore this theme.
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![S&M (Remix) [feat. Britney Spears] by Rihanna](https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Music114/v4/1c/8c/06/1c8c06c4-56e0-c89a-6936-3b4871e05917/11UMGIM10184.rgb.jpg/600x600bb.jpg)
Rihanna
S&M (Remix) [feat. Britney Spears]
Two of pop's biggest provocateurs turn kink into a club anthem about owning what other people call bad
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Britney Spears
Gimme More (Remastered)
A dance-floor anthem about being watched, wanting it, and daring the crowd to keep demanding while she performs through the noise
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Drake
One Dance (feat. Wizkid & Kyla)
A club plea dressed up as a love song, where a single dance with a stranger becomes a pause from danger, distance, and the pressure of where the narrator comes from
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ANOTR
Talk To You (feat. 54 Ultra)
A house-floor invitation that treats the dancefloor as a private elsewhere, where attraction and rhythm do the talking
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SIENNA SPIRO
Material Lover
A defense of sensory, tactile pleasure as its own kind of intimacy, sung from inside the world of designer-clad ambition
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Olivia Dean
So Easy (To Fall In Love)
A confident pitch to a hesitant crush, framing the singer as both the fun of a Saturday night and the steadiness of a long future
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Calvin Harris, Dua Lipa
One Kiss
A confident proposition dressed as a pop song: the narrator promises that a single kiss will be enough to convince a hesitant stranger they belong together
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Josh Fawaz
Like a Prayer
A short, devotional pop cover that treats a lover's voice as something close to religious experience, collapsing romance and prayer into the same gesture
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Aerosmith
Pink
A leering, tongue-in-cheek hard-rock love song that uses the color pink as a stand-in for desire, intimacy, and a touch of harmless kink
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Justin Timberlake
Rock Your Body
A negotiation on the dance floor that barely bothers to disguise itself as anything other than what it is, a pickup
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Ed Sheeran
Shivers
A giddy, all-night infatuation song about wanting every minute with someone whose physical pull feels chemical
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Alex Warren
FEVER DREAM
A man whose heart was nearly shut for business gets reopened by a stranger, and the rush is so disorienting he can't tell infatuation from hallucination
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Taylor Swift
The Fate of Ophelia
A love song that uses Hamlet's drowned Ophelia as the cautionary alternative: rescue from despair by a partner who arrived just before the spiral closed
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Bruno Mars
Why You Wanna Fight?
A late-night plea from a man who knows he was wrong, asking his partner to trade the argument for reconciliation before the relationship slips past saving
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Dua Lipa
Training Season
A pop ultimatum to prospective partners: show up emotionally fluent or step aside, because the singer is done coaching dates through the basics