The Playlist: 10 Songs for the crazy little things (and people) worth loving
Updated: Feb. 19, 2019
Add these 10 tunes to your playlist this month.
1. For Titanic lovers
“My Heart Will Go On” by Céline Dion (Click Here To Listen Now)
When it comes to a great love (and ship) doomed by fate, nothing less will do than the chest-thumping, uvula-rattling strains of Céline’s most powerful power ballad.
2. For baseball lovers
“La La Love You” by The Pixies (Click Here To Listen Now)
Technically the “first base, second base, third base, home run” refrain in this college-rock classic is meant to refer to indoor sports (so to speak), but it can just as easily be applied to a day at the ballgame. Hey, pretty batter.
3. For astronomy lovers
“Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler (Click Here To Listen Now)
The soaring chorus and sweeping synthesizer of this ’80s pop anthem are tailor-made for gazing at the night sky. Tyler gets bonus points for extending the eclipse metaphor through the lyrics “love like a shadow on me” and feeling like she’s “always in the dark.”
4. For geometry lovers
“Bizarre Love Triangle” by Frente! (Click Here To Listen Now)
It’s unclear whether the triangle conjured is isosceles, equilateral or scalene. Nevertheless, this ’90s cover version uses delicately sketched lines of acoustic guitar to map out the curious angles and dynamics in a complicated amorous arrangement.
5. For paranormal lovers
“Werewolf Heart” by Dead Man’s Bones (Click Here To Listen Now)
This plaintive wisp of a tune from actor/beautiful human Ryan Gosling and his macabre indie-folk band might creep you out, but if there’s anyone who can make disintegrating corpses sound dreamy, he’s the guy.
6. For fitness lovers
“Heart Sweats” by Japandroids (Click Here to Listen Now)
Lauded Vancouver rock duo Japandroids sing about lapsing into a pulse-racing state of rapture in spite of yourself-while mounting a relentless assault of fuzzed-out guitar and galloping drums that will leave your heart pounding in your ears.
7. For hip-hop lovers
“I Used to Love H.E.R.” by Common (Click Here To Listen Now)
Way back in 1994, the Obama-approved rapper released this jazzy track, in which he works through his relationship with the ever-changing culture of hip-hop-represented here as an unpredictable (and frequently disappointing) girl.
8. For poetry lovers
“Plath Heart” by Braids (Click Here To Listen Now)
Brooding, bleak and beautiful (like the best poems), this weird tune by Montreal’s dreamiest dream-pop ensemble is speckled with nods to Sylvia Plath and her “Lady Lazarus.”
9. For winter lovers
“Snowfall” by Ingrid Michaelson (Click Here To Listen Now)
If crackling fires, wooly socks and long hikes through post-blizzard woods are your idea of perfect-date material, then baby, this is the love song for you.
10. For musical-theatre lovers
“Seasons of Love” by Rent original cast recording (Click Here To Listen Now)
Sure, there’s Sondheim and there’s Lloyd Webber, but there’s something so satisfying about the straightforward earnestness of this song from Rent, Jonathan Larson’s revamp of La Bohème in the age of AIDS. No clever wordplay, no melodic acrobatics: just a pure, sentimental anthem about the value of human life, to be belted at top volume.
