Valentines Day is coming up, and what better way to materialize the romantic vibe in the air than to listen to some really romantic, sentimental, heartfelt music? This isn’t only true for those of us lucky enough to celebrate this day of love with their significant others, but also for the ones like us who’ll be riding this day out solo, lone-wolf style. So throw your tacky chocolate boxes out the window and make room for some feverish, wholehearted, tenderhearted, love-sick, and very much sick-of-love tunes.
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Let Love In
“Do you love me / Like I love you?” Is how Nick Cave opens the acclaimed Let Love In. The question is simple enough; the rest of the album, composed of nine twisted, menacing, heartfelt songs, is not. It isn’t always pretty either: Nick Cave delves deep into the recesses of a feverish, nightmarish love, exposing its depraved landscape as if his heart were actually driving him insane. To let love in is to be possessed, to give yourself to something which isn’t, strictly speaking, yourself, on the off-chance that nothing will come out of it.
Father John Misty – I Love You Honeybear
Father John Misty’s I Love You Honeybear is a genuine outpouring of the heart coming from a jaded cynic who couldn’t speak an honest word to save his life. The result is a tug of war between a self-aware, self-deprecative pessimism and finding a way to overcome it through another person. The problem is: What happens when your significant other isn’t a phantasmic fairy meant to vindicate you from your gloomy ways, but a brooding cynic herself? I Love You Honeybear encapsulates the solidarity of two misanthropes negating and then rekindling their toxic essence through their own love.
Kanye West – 808s and Heartbreak
Kanye West’s seminal 808s and Heartbreak isn’t just a modern Hip-Hop classic, it’s a modern Hip-Hop classic about love. It also played a key role in lifting the barrier keeping emotions way out of Hip-Hop’s mainstream, inspiring artists such as Drake to pour their heart out in a way that was, at the time, unconventional. Though the album itself is one of West’s rougher, less polished works, the emotional impact it had is undeniable.
