How It Starts: “I want it all, no, nothing else…”

Why It Works: “Neighbors” is a sex jam gleeful and silly enough to be crying out for a bridge to really put it over the top, and this one - replete with repeat knocking sound effects, of course - more than does the trick. The Part You Definitely Remember: Songz’s wryly grinning “Sometimes she call me Trey/ Sometimes she say Tremaine,” taken to the next level at bridge’s end with his yelped “Sometimes she call me Trigga ’cause I make her body bust.” How It Starts: “While I’ll be banging on your body, they be banging on our wall” Why It Works : Though the bridge is a touch more subdued than the rest of the song, the Norwegian singer-songwriter pops in a gleeful “wee!” between each line, keeping things tooth-achingly sweet as she reminds listeners that she’s here for a good time, not a long time. The Part You Definitely Remember : When Annie drops her cutesy delivery and speak-sings “I don’t want to settle down” in a more serious, seductive tone, she really drives home the fact that she’s probably not just talking about gum. How It Starts : “I don’t want to settle down, I just wanna have fun” Why It Works: “Black Beatles” plays it perfectly with callbacks to its titular inspiration: Short, quick glances that enrich the song if you’re Beatlemaniac enough to get them, and don’t distract from the song’s extremely 2016 perfection if you aren’t. The Part You Definitely Remember: That beginning to Swae Lee’s interlude before Slxm Jxmmi’s third verse, in which he gives the slyest of sly nods to the Beatles’ “Day Tripper” before issuing one of hip-hop’s great combo come-ons/warnings: “Your body like a work of art, baby/ Don’t f–k with me, I’ll break your heart, baby.” How It Starts: “She’s a big teaser/ And we’re blowin’ reefer” (Before you ask, though: No, “SexyBack” isn’t on here - that’s the pre-chorus you’re taking us to, JT and Tim, not the bridge.) With all that in mind, let Billboard take you to the bridge with our list below, with a playlist of all 100 songs at the very bottom.

The only hard-and-fast rules we used were that the bridge has to occur after at least one chorus (though in a few rare cases, they come before the second verse), has to include some vocal element (though not all have lyrics, strictly speaking), has to introduce new musical and/or thematic elements to the song, and has to be followed by some kind of return of the song’s main refrain. What makes a bridge at all, let alone a good bridge, is of course subjective, and we had to make some tough calls about what song sections do and don’t count as bridges. To salute the shot in the arm our latest cover star has given the bridge form - and to highlight some of the other best examples of recent years - Billboard is counting down our 100 favorite song bridges of the 21st century. License to Thrive: Olivia Rodrigo Zooms Ahead After 2021’s Biggest Breakout Hit

“You have to provide that departure, you can do so much with it… it’s such a component to pop songwriting that I don’t see it going anywhere at all.” “I think it is such a key part of pop song form,” says David Penn, co-founder of Hit Songs Deconstructed, which provides compositional analytics for top 10 Hot 100 hits. Not totally, of course: Pop songs will almost always have opportunity for a late-arriving breakdown section that offers some sort of new element to contrast from the first couple verses and choruses, before hitting you once more with the main hook. If nothing else, it’s the most singular part of a song, appearing after the second chorus like a late-breaking curveball and usually not returning until you go back and play the song all over again.īut in contemporary pop music, the bridge might be disappearing. But very often, it’s the part that ends up being the most revealing, the hardest hitting, the least shakeable. It’s not the most immediate part of a song, nor usually the stickiest or most recognizable - in fact, it might be the toughest part for you to remember at karaoke. The bridge holds a special place in the hearts of music fans.

El paso man jumps off bridge 2021