5 Songs Fit to Follow “Leave the Door Open” On Your Sexy Time Playlist

Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak’s Neo-Vintage Burner is Deceptively Hard to Pin Down

With the year more than halfway into the history books, it’s pretty clear that Silk Sonic’s “Leave the Door Open” is the current one-seed for Song of the Year. The modern R&B outfit helmed by pop’s most dynamic musical chameleon, Bruno Mars, and hip-hop soul dynamo Anderson .Paak immediately captured the hearts, minds, and myriad other organs of music lovers worldwide with the lush arrangement, pristine harmonies, and seamless transitions of the playfully sexy slow jam.

Like millions of enraptured listeners the world over, I instantly knew the song had to be added to my regular rotation. But proper playlist placement proved much harder than expected, am I right?

“Leave the Door Open” feels instantly familiar, but it’s deceptively difficult to pin down from where, precisely, it cribs its sultry sounds. Is it a nod to the ‘70s? The ‘80s? The ‘90s? Is it Philly Soul? Neo-Soul? New Jack Swing? As any decent DJ knows, the key to proper sequencing is finding a groove and riding it through a song suite.

Follow “Leave the Door Open” with a contemporary hit, and the new song feels rudimentary by comparison. The meticulous craftsmanship of “Leave the Door” open makes painfully clear the lack of melody, progression, and nuance plaguing the lion’s share of your local urban contemporary radio station’s playlist.

Follow it with a Quiet Storm classic, and the older song feels staid in its chivalrous style of courtship. You’ll be hard-pressed to find the Stylistics harmonizing “drip drip” to signal the luxuriousness of their loungewear, or the O’Jays’ Eddie Levert likening his freshly shaved face to that of a newborn.

After much thought and more than a little trial and error, I found five songs that carried just the right mix of old and new, sentiment and swagger, and most importantly vocal and musical excellence to follow “Leave the Door Open.” Hopefully, they help you incorporate the year’s best slow jam into a playlist that transitions as effortlessly as the song does.

“This One’s For Me And You” - Johnny Gill featuring New Edition (2016)

Nowhere is the adage that everything old eventually becomes new again more apt than in the transient world of popular music. More than 3 decades after their early ’80s debut, Johnny Gill reconvened his four group mates for this mid-tempo earworm off his 2016 Game Changer album. What could easily have played as a perfunctory bit of nostalgia finds the group at their most organic and cohesive since 1988's masterpiece Heartbreak album, on which Gill replaced Bobby Brown in the lineup.

Like “Leave the Door Open,” “This One’s For Me And You” plays like a magical mystery tour through the annals of R&B history, recalling in equal parts, the group’s ’80s pop sensibility and the measured polish of their ’60s soul inspiration. It’s presented with an easy sophistication befitting of men now in their 40s and 50s. Lyrically the song pays homage to the timeless romanticism of the genre itself, with the group harmonizing:

So let the record play I love the way, it makes your body move It sounds so good to me, reminds me of you And when the record plays a melody, love fills up the room

Indeed.

“He Don’t Know Nothin’ Bout It” — Jam & Lewis x Babyface (2021)

Between them, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, and Babyface (along with his partners L.A. Reid and Darryl Simmons) were responsible for writing and producing seemingly half the songs that dominated the R&B charts from the mid-80s through the late ’90s. (If you don’t know, Wikipedia.)

Still, it was a surprise to hear Face’s dulcet vocals fronting the lead single from Jam & Lewis’s excellent 2021 debut album Volume 1, given the perceived rivalry during their heyday. It’s as if the soul superpowers ended their cold war to bring much-needed heat back to R&B.

Released a few months before “Leave the Door Open,” “He Don’t Know Nothin’ Bout It” exudes a similar warmth. The veterans give an easy nod to modern sounds, with Babyface incorporating a more rhythmic cadence into his trademark crooning during the song’s verses. He shifts back into vintage form with the chorus’s syrupy thick melody straight out of the ’90s Quiet Storm playbook. But it’s the epic bridge that elevates the track from good to great, with Jam & Lewis stacking vocals and synthesizers with the precision of master pastry chefs crafting a 7-layer cake.

Take note Bruno and Andy. These old dogs still have a few tricks you can learn from.

“Breakfast in Bed” - Mayer Hawthorne (2016)

The song that inspired this list, Mayer Hawthorne’s yacht soul heater is probably also the one that has the most in common with “Leave the Door Open,” at least cosmetically. The slow piano-driven build-up. The deceptively leisurely pacing crisply moves the song from section to section. The enveloping warmth of the harmonies of choruses that seem to float from the deepest recesses of the tracks.

“Breakfast in Bed” is to the morning after what “Leave the Door Open” is to the night of - a sweet seduction that stops just short of saccharine, and is self-aware enough that its camp lands as playfully endearing rather than cringe-worthy.

Make It Better - Anderson .Paak featuring Smokey Robinson (2019)

I know, I know. It’s a bit of a playlist cheat code to use back-to-back songs from the same artist. But for the legions of Bruno Mars fans getting their first introduction to the prodigious talents of Anderson .Paak via “Leave the Door Open,” “Make It Better” is a comfortable spot to dip another toe into his soulful solo catalogue.

Free of the Mars sheen, “Make It Better” finds .Paak in his true wheelhouse, pairing the romanticism of a vintage soul man with the raw honesty of a hip-hop griot. A slight step up in tempo from “Leave the Door Open,” “Make It Better” is a perfect two-step groove.

.Paak’s earthy vocal texture is subtly accentuated by the accompanying Fender Rhodes while backing vocals from the legendary Smokey Robinson add the perfect touch of Motown era sweetness to the chorus.

Up For Air - Raheem DeVaughn featuring The Colleagues and R.A. Brown (2020)

If “Leave the Door Open” is the soundtrack for the 10 PM portion of the seduction, “Up for Air” is 1 AM. The raunch to romance scale tips precipitously toward the former, but it’s romantic raunch, with the self-proclaimed “Love King” putting his full vocal range on display to pledge:

When I’m down on your love I won’t come up for air

While the lyrical bluntness is decidedly modern, the song’s construction is decidedly old school. Clocking in at over 6 and a half minutes, “Up For Air” marinates in its slow build up. A spoken word intro by R.A. Brown segues seamlessly into DeVaughn’s staccato verse, backed by doo-wop style harmonies, before climaxing into an explosive chorus. We even get a spirited post-chorus before he reloads for Round 2.

“Up For Air” is a triple S burner: sexy, soulful, and ultimately, kind of sweet. It’s not big on subtlety, but 1 AM is a little late for that.

What follows “Leave the Door Open” in your playlist? Drop some favorites in the comments. A slow jam set can never run too deep.