Best Ever Albums

Re: What makes a love song "great"?

Fischman — Tue, 12 Feb 2019 00:34:23 GMT

Author: Fischman

Posted: 02/12/2019 05:34

One of love's great challenges is keeping it alive. Dan Fogelberg completely nails it.

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Re: What makes a love song "great"?

babyBlueSedan — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 23:20:34 GMT

Author: babyBlueSedan

Posted: 02/12/2019 04:20

If there's one thing I'd criticize silly love songs for (the concept, I actually don't mind the McCartney song) it's lack of creativity. Heaping praise on someone gets pretty boring, and is frankly unrealistic. Part of love is learning to acknowledge someone faults and seeing them as a person, not as something to idolize. Being that it's one of my favorite albums it's impossible for me to talk about this topic without mentioning 69 Love Songs, and I think approaching love realistically and uniquely is something that Stephen Merritt does really well on that album. Take this song, which is pretty standard lyrically but stands out because of the beautiful lines "You may not be beautiful, but that's not for me to judge. I don't know if you are beautiful because I love you too much":

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And on the flip side, he approaches falling out of love in a deeper way than the general "I'm so sad you're gone" sentiment. Part of me feels like I'm just saying that I like these songs better than other songs, but I really think he communicates the details of these feelings in songs like this:

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Being the cynical person I am, I also like songs about pure despair like this:

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To balance out the happy/sad in this post and to make the page load even slower, here's a Nick Cave song I really like. This one dives into more standard love song tropes but I think the "leave you as you are" sentiment again keeps it from being sappy and keeps it grounded.

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Re: What makes a love song "great"?

RoundTheBend — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 22:44:50 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 02/12/2019 03:44

Just watch this video for one of my answers I guess (especially unrequited love, but also some of the realities of a relationship). (Doh! this gets cut off... if you can find the full version I fully recommend it, not only for the music, but the rest of the "love story")

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Also your post reminded me of song that rides the line of both schmaltzy and true:

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What makes a love song "great"?

LebowskiRams — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 16:35:27 GMT

Author: LebowskiRams

Posted: 02/11/2019 21:35

As long as music exists, love songs will too.

Because of that relationship, there's a shit ton of love songs and a number of cliche or flat-out horrible ones.

In your mind, what makes great love songs stand apart from the pack, and what are some examples?