Valentine’s Day is upon us, and irrespective of how you intend to spend it, you will want an ideal soundtrack to suit the temper. Whether or not you are smitten and in love, salty over your ex, or just unamused by the arrival of one more Hallmark vacation, wonderful music is at all times the reply. With the launch of the all-new AP retailer, which carries an array of genre-spanning information (amongst many different thrilling objects), we’re narrowing down the 5 must-buy Valentine’s Day albums, and likelihood is, there shall be one thing tailored for you and the way you want to have a good time at the moment. Store the complete Valentine’s Day assortment right here.
Avril Lavigne — Love Sux
Regardless of what the album title suggests, Avril Lavigne’s seventh studio album Love Sux is definitely a triumphant listening expertise that chronicles the queen of pop-punk’s journey to rediscover her sense of self-love after a collection of heartbreaks and setbacks. Whereas there are in fact a number of emo-leaning songs to blast when you’re feeling bitter about love ( “Love It When You Hate Me,” “Chew Me”) there may be additionally a good quantity of empowering anthems that may carry you up and fill you with these all-too-familiar butterflies.
Billie Eilish— Happier Than Ever
When it got here time for pop famous person Billie Eilish to put in writing the follow-up to her massively profitable debut When We All Fall Asleep, The place Do We Go? it’s secure to imagine that there was no concern of the dreaded sophomore stoop, as Eilish clearly had greater than sufficient life expertise to tug from this time round. On Happier Than Ever, Eilish particulars all the things from breakups and first likes to susceptible accounts of trauma and emotional abuse. Eilish additionally makes use of aspects of the document to mirror on her romantic journey thus far with songs like title monitor “Happier Than Ever,” which serves because the album’s key breakup ballad to the album’s nearer “Male Fantasy,” the place Eilish invitations dives into intercourse and sexuality.
Lana Del Ray— Blue Banisters
Blue Banisters, Lana Del Ray‘s eighth studio album is undoubtedly her most inward-looking and well timed launch because it was written and recorded throughout the top of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns. Like so many throughout this time, Del Ray was in a reflective place however she analyzed the world round her because it was thrust right into a state of tragedy, injustice, and uncertainty. Regardless of being crafted throughout a bleak interval, Blue Bannisters is a manner for the singer to reconnect together with her personal private femininity and make sense of poisonous relationships. Alongside the way in which, she finds company and confidence within the course of.
Halsey— If I Cannot Have Love, I Need Energy
If I Cannot Have Love, I Need Energy, the fourth studio album by singer-songwriter Halsey, is a monolithic idea document that carries an plain quantity of emotional weight and groundbreaking honesty. Produced by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of 9 Inch Nails, Halsey paperwork their expertise with being pregnant and childbirth all through the document in hanging element. The album, which they describe as an effort to “reclaim autonomy and set up pleasure and energy as a life drive for a human being” is a harrowing journey that finds the prolific artist detailing their very own expertise with femininity and self-love inside a patriarchal and infrequently objectifying society. Extra so, Halsey navigates the unconditional love that got here together with her new being pregnant, whereas additionally being certain to not sugarcoat the very actual pressures and fears that surfaced.
Kate Bush— Hounds of Love
English singer-songwriter Kate Bush’s fifth studio album Hounds of Love is maybe her most beloved, progressive, and experimental album so far. Not solely did it spawn Bush’s iconic and timeless single “Working Up That Hill (A Take care of God)” which went viral in 2022 because of its placement in Netflix’s Stranger Issues, however additionally it is a deeply ethereal document that analyzes all the things from her expertise with being one foot out the door of affection (“Hounds of Love”) to the complexity of human connection as an entire (“Working Up That Hill”) in addition to a love letter to the easy joys of youthful dream-like innocence (“The Large Sky”).
