So it is that time again, where we come and rejoice at another musical spectacle curated for your own listening delight and with February comes our first theme – Valentine’s Day!

One of the more gorgeously clichéd and pointless days in the calendar, Valentine’s Day is peak human consumerism as you see that banker on the commute with some ironic inflatable heart balloon and a bottle of tres expensive Moet…or you curl up and singlehandedly eat your way through your favourite tube of Pringles, watching Crazy, Stupid, Love and lusting over the sheer magical chemistry seen between Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone (a couple I still insist should be together due to how fab they are together ‘on the screen’; I know Eva Mendes is great Ryan but my god the Dirty Dancing lift is a sight to behold).

This playlist hopefully has a little bit for everyone, bringing together some of the songs we feel best embody the three stages of a Valentine’s Day – ‘Love’, the ‘Break Up’ and the ‘Fuck it I am single’ power ballad. So let’s explore the three stages of nearly all the romantic relationships you will have in your life… 

Firstly love and the unbridled sense of joy and knowing that you can go home and watch Sex Education or The Good Place on Netflix and you have someone to share the laughs with. That kind of love where they’ve seen you eat a kebab at 4am, after you’ve lost the ability to stand and they’ve still thought to themselves ‘that’s me lover right there and I am a right lucky so and so’ (I like to think that this isn’t personal to me…). A truly unique sensation that can’t be faked. Like David Seaman in goal, these are the keepers for life. This playlist kicks off with absolute classics from The Four Tops, Aretha Franklin and the man himself, Prince.

Next up, the never pleasant, always rubbish tracks that reverberate around your broken heart like a thousand knives in a tumble dryer (don’t know even know if that is a viable metaphor but such wankness is this sensation that no metaphor is good enough). These are the tracks that we think you should go to if you want to cry into a cup-a-soup whilst watching an episode of the Antiques Roadshow as you desperately seek answers to that one question – WILL I EVER FIND LOVE AGAIN?

We’ve almost completed our journey now. Together we are strong. You are ready to go outside once more, go see you friends and hit the town with a big ‘fuck you love’ written across your forehead. This is the ‘I am single and hell yeah I am ready to mingle’ power hour, where the world is your oyster, you have no ties and you are looking fierce. Strap yourselves in guys and gals, these gen-u-wine bombs from the likes of Ariana Grande, Beyoncé and the queen of all queens – Diana Ross – mean you have completed your journey.

You. Are. Fab.

So here is to Valentine’s Day. The most awful of the commercially celebrated days of the year. So whether you are doing the whole dinner and candles thing or a pizza in your pyjamas, hopefully there is a little bit of something in here for everyone at this most trying time of the year.

In an unashamedly obvious ripe off of L’Oréal – you are goddamn worth it!

Love Rich x