Love & desire

A quiet meditation on staying loyal to a memory longer than the memory deserves. Vela Maren uses the worn-o…

A floor-burner that turns "envolver" — a signature funk carioca move — into a metaphor for control: the one…

A song that packs every hesitation and reply into one word: "Ditto" — meaning "same here." NewJeans fuses 9…

Brazil's greatest karaoke anthem is a confession in reverse. Every attempt the narrator makes to prove he i…

A setting-the-record-straight, not a plea. Faced with a "djadja" — a guy bragging about an affair that neve…

A song shaped like a letter sent at night. Words too shy for daylight are passed quietly under cover of the…

A sweet, extreme love confession. "Shinunoga e-wa" is an over-the-top line in Okayama dialect — "I'd rather…

Seduction taken slowly. "Despacito" (slowly, little by little) makes desire a matter of time: no rushing, s…

A mock-opera in miniature whose meaning Freddie Mercury never explained. A young man confesses he has kille…

A hopeful, deliberately vague anthem about someone who might be the one to save you. The narrator half-beli…

Desire told as a dance that cannot be stopped. In "Bailando", attraction makes the body tremble and the pul…