Alessandra Schade

There’s nothing quite so compelling, heart-wrenching or soul-shaking as a really top notch love song. The best can conjure up a euphoric urge for you to belt along, or reduce you to a sad, quivering, emotional wreck. But the genre is, as we know, an incredibly saturated market, and we’ve been writing love songs since the Dark Ages after all. Don’t stress your little heart out too much, though, as we’ve put in the legwork to bring you this roundup of the very best lovey-dovey tunes, from a 1950s hit by The Flamingos to the dulcet tones of Beyoncé. RECOMMENDED:🍆The sexiest songs of all time💋The best R&B love songs💔The best breakup songs🎺The best soul songs This guide was recently updated by NYC-based arts and culture journalist Alessandra Schade. Entries are by Time Out Editors. For more about how we curate, have a look at our editorial guidelines. 

Sure, Netflix and chill is cool, but nothing sets the mood like a good sexy song. Sex and music are the Beyoncé and Jay-Z of popular culture, but picking the right music is crucial. Pick a silky-smooth slow jam, and you’re likely in for an awesome night. Turn on some Weird Al or death metal? You’ve got a slammed door in your future. In 2023, not long after we were social-distancing and quarantining in very un-sexy pods, we just want to touch each other, period. But for many of us, it’s been a while. So if you’re overwhelmed, we’re here to help. Below, you’ll find the 60 best sexy songs to set a steamy mood. Some are about making love outright, others are more subtly devious. Regardless, they’re sure to get your heart – and other organs – racing.  Written by Bruce Tantum, Sophie Harris, Marley Lynch, Andy Kryza, Rachel Sonis, Hank Schteamer, Steve Smith and Matthew Singer, updated by Alessandra Schade. RECOMMENDED:💕 The best love songs❤️ The best R&B songs💔 The best heartbreak songs😭 The best breakup songs

In December of 1973, on the corner where Bleecker Street collided into the graffitied skid row of the Bowery, Hilly Kristal opened CBGB, a skunky neighborhood dive bar. Fifty years later and 17 years since its marquee shuttered, the defunct music club at 315 Bowery still embodies the legacy of the punk scene which grew, prospered and died on the filthy streets of pre-gentrified Downtown Manhattan. But in the winter of ‘73, CBGB was fresh to the block—a particularly miserable street of the Bowery, nestled just south of Astor Place—where the buildings were lower, the rents were cheaper and the cast of characters were drunker. Country, Bluegrass, Blues and Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers Shaggy-haired Hilly had repurposed his joint “Hilly’s on Bowery” to “CBGB & OMFUG,” short for “Country, Bluegrass, Blues and Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers,” hoping to host country and bluegrass, though his spot quickly became home to the abrasive, no-wave music of punk groups like Patti Smith, Television, Talking Heads and the Ramones. Beer signs lit up in neon plastered the place, from the low-slung door down into the cavernous saloon. “You don't want to know the smell,” iconic punk photographer Bob Gruen teases. “Hilly had two dogs that he kept as guard dogs and they didn't get walked,” he says. “There were lumps around in the corners and stuff that you didn't want to step in. That was part of the ambiance.” Gruen describes Hilly’s oversight “as if your parents go out of town