There’s a trick I love in a lot of pop songs. Somewhere in the back half of the song, most instruments drop out. The chorus repeats once, a cappella or close to it. An instrument or two return as the chorus repeats, then a few more more the next time around. Eventually they all joyously crash back in. It’s the pop version of a dubstep drop, and equally effective.
For this to pay off, of course, that chorus that keeps repeating needs to be insanely, ridiculously catchy. Anything less will begin to grate long before you reach the payoff.
This is not a problem for Madaila’s ’80s-tinged pop song “Give Me All Your Love.” The song has verses too, of course, which lay out the concept and showcase singer Mark Daly’s inimitable falsetto. But as much as anything, they lead you to the song’s powerhouse chorus. When you finally hit that second-half sonic buildup, it repeats god knows how many times. You still might press play to hear it again.
Check out more entries in our month-long series on The Best Songs of the 2010s.
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