10 songs full of L-O-V-E

Valentine’s Day is Monday, and the holiday stirs up warm gushy feelings in some, while others feel the sociopathic rage to kill.

Fortunately some great artists have tapped into both feelings, and they’ve very thoughtfully recorded the resultant experiences in song and video so we can enjoy the catharsis (without ending up married or in jail).

Here are videos from Blancmange, Myles Cooper, Japan, Gwar, and more.

What unites them?

Love, of course.

Ten videos full of love, from Sean Carnage

Japan – “Love is Infectious”
“Aha—fake out. The first video is just a still image. Bu it’s an absolutely savage-sounding track by a killer band. It’s like disco + metal + creepy. Now that your retinas are rested (from looking at David Sylvian’s luxuriant hair) and your aural nerves are stimulated, you can move on to…”

Sweet – “Love is like Oxygen”
“This is DISCO (writ large—quite literally) + metal + really high falsetto vocals, which probably seems creepy to some people but which I find rather pleasant. This band was just at the Echoplex with Fancy Space People. They are still great!”

Blancmange – “The Love That It Is”
“If you’ve ever wondered why I love bands like Former Ghosts and other singing w/ synths stuff, here you go. This band made a lasting impression on me (it actually was this studio version—but I love the live version more nowadays).”

The Cult – “Love Removal Machine”
“Goth posers playing poser metal—the very definition of love in my book. Check out the end. Grunge was on it’s way.””

Type-O Negative – “Love You to Death”
“So let’s just skip grunge and move on to what is really important: Peter Steele’s penis.”

Roxy Music – “Love is the Drug”
“I’m a huge Roxy fan, but I hadn’t seen this—a live version from their prime, pre-first break-up era—before today. The background singer is so loud and squonky when she comes in that Bryan Ferry looks like he is about to spit up on his tie.”

Donna Summer – “Love to Love You Baby”
“An Internet classic and a musical classic. Only Donna Summer (and Giorgio Moroder) could pull this off. (I was also thinking of this because Dicso Bunny does a Spanish cover of ‘I Feel Love’ and they are playing the Pehr VD party)”

Linda Ronstadt – “Love is a Rose”
“My parents always used to jam this when I was little. Ronstadt is a true L.A. girl and I still like her version.”

Pet Shop Boys – “Love Comes Quickly”
“I think this may be from the same year as that Cult video but look at the slickness here. And at the time these two insisted the title wasn’t a double entendre—HA. Still I kind of miss ’80s/’90s strategic stupidity.”

Myles Cooper – “Lord Love Music”
“This has love in the title so it’s fair game right? I’m not sure what it has to do with love, what with the protagonist (singer Myles Cooper) being led into an underground antechamber by a culty-looking group of individuals. Maybe it is for…”

Gwar – “Love Surgery”
“To see your nipples stripped from you/Tossed into my human stew/That’s why you came to me/You were begging for love surgery. That’s right, begging. I hope you get what you want this Valentine’s Day.”

Don’t miss the party