Terri Ciccone:
Love
“Best Friend,” Queen
For a straightforward and G-rated love song to cuddle to, no one says it better than Freddy Mercury: “You’re the best friend that I’ve ever had.you’re my sunshine and. my feelings are true I really love you.,MUSIC
Terri Ciccone:
Love
“Best Friend,” Queen
For a straightforward and G-rated love song to cuddle to, no one says it better than Freddy Mercury: “You’re the best friend that I’ve ever had.you’re my sunshine and. my feelings are true I really love you.” So adorable.
“Echo,” Incubus
Echo is a dreamy love song, one that makes you feel like slow dancing among the constellations. It’s a song about “finding the real thing,” and if it’s playing on Valentine’s Day it will make you feel like you simply can’t live without the person sitting next to you.
“Aphrodisiac,” Bow Wow Wow
The name says it all, and Valentine’s Day seems to be one itself. Perfect for some fast-paced lovin’ after a relaxing and romantic evening. If you have that special someone on hand and are ready to promote condom awareness week, then this is the song to listen to.
Anti-Love
“Ex-Girlfriend,” No Doubt
If you kind of always knew you’d end up an ex-lover, then maybe you should have thought of that before you kissed. However, instead of being clicheacute; on Valentine’s Day and listing regrets of past relationships, join the rest of the world by taking advantage of the chocolate in the sale bin at CVS and eat away your pain.
“Jumper,” Third Eye Blind
Relationships can drive you off the edge. Therefore, take a step back from that ledge my friend, and back away from the 90’s playlist, because this song is a deadly mix of downer lyrics, and themes of lies and break ups.
“Screaming Infidelities,” Dashboard Confessional
Toxic any day, but particularly on Valentine’s Day. This song should come with a warning: song is armed with depressing lyrics, acoustic guitar, minor cords and scr-emo. Do not listen to if you have had a heart attack, suffer from liver disease or if you are alone on Valentine’s Day.
Nick McCarthy:
Love
“She’s My Best Friend,” The Velvet Underground
Certainly not the average song. An eccentric ode to platonic love, which is possibly not at all platonic.
“I Melt With You,” Modern English
Pure ’80s brilliance. What’s more romantic than stopping time and collectively changing molecules with the one you love?
“Meaningless,” Jon Brion
“Things were meaningless before, we’d seen them together.” Brion’s perfect pop song connects objects with experiences, illuminating the idea that every relationship creates new meaning.
“Winter’s Love,” Animal Collective
An odd romance full of wailing, mumbling, drums and snow. This is hardly conventional love, and Animal Collective’s experimental pop hooks discover warmth and growth at the end of a chilly season.
Anti-Love
“He Ain’t Comin’ Home No More,” Nina Simone
Not even delusion can convince Nina that her baby is coming back or her hopeless situation will get better-sung in the emotive, conflicted way only Nina Simone can.
“All By Myself,” Eric Carmen
If you decide to play this on a classic record player, you might prefer to just use the record needle for something else. To push you even closer towards suicide, listen to the Celine Dion version.
“Answering Machine,” The Replacements
Nothing is more frustrating than an ex-beau’s voicemail message. The unsophisticated lyrics “How do you say I’m lonely to an answering machine,” are turned on their head with the singer’s candid anguish. Let’s not even go into the despair within the repeated answering machine operator, “If you need help.”
“Jonathon David,” Belle Sebastian
When the opening lyrics are “I know you like her/Well, I like her too/I know she likes you” you know this love triangle is going to result in a flat third wheel.
MOVIES
Harry Vaughn:
Love
Moulin Rouge!
A giant, candy-coated, pop ballad movie-musical extravaganza that closely resembles a bright red, heart-shaped box of chocolates ready-made for Valentine’s Day. It may be nauseatingly sweet, but if you throw yourself into its sugar-high enthusiasm, it’s hard not to come out singing.
Moulin Rouge! embraces all of cinema’s histrionic romantic clicheacute;s and inadvertently revitalizes their very meaning and context.
In the Mood for Love
Wong Kar Wai’s reticent mood piece is a drawn-out, fully-clothed exercise in foreplay. In every frame of the film, sex is replaced with knowing glances and quietly disguised innuendo.
Throughout its 98-minute running time, romance takes the form of subtle suggestions, making Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung’s relationship all the more frustrating and beguiling to behold.
Anti-Love
Audition
Boy meets girl. Boy dates girl. Girl slices boy’s leg off with bendable wire while he lies paralyzed, under no anesthetics. So goes the romantic disaster film, Audition, a tale so unexpectedly gruesome and cruel, it practically defies the categorization of horror.
It’s difficult to think of a fitting time to subject yourself to director Takashi Miike’s bloodbath, but it most certainly shouldn’t be on Valentine’s Day, unless of course you fit into the category of a vengeful Japanese sociopath who chops off the limbs of her boyfriends and leaves them in giant brown sacks just for the hell of it.
Happiness
Todd Solondz’s pitch black comedy about the woes of human connection is without a doubt the most cynical study of relationships this side of Neil LaBute.
It’s also a masterful investigation into the psychology of perversion, especially in the film’s scenes involving a pedophilic father who drugs and rapes his 10 year-old son’s best friend. It’s not however, a film to cuddle up to.
Nick McCarthy:
Love
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
A film about teen pregnancy that sugar-coats the lens, not the content. Before she gets knocked up and he leaves for war, the young love that exists between Genevi