Valentine's Day: Albums to mend a broken heart

Dry The River, The Milk, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, more

Daniel Fahey - 09 February 2011

Bloody Valentine’s Day never seems to hold significance when you’re single. It’s only when you’re in a budding romance or you’ve just been dumped that it suddenly makes your heart skip a beat like an ex’s phone number popping up on your mobile.

Some of the best albums though, have come through other people’s pain - just look at ‘Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space’ by Spiritualized - and in the darker times they become wonderful beacons that we can relate to as we try to channel our heartbreak.

So for those who are enduring heartbreak at the moment, pull the curtains shut, lock the doors and put any of the following albums on the soothe your pain. You’ll come out better the other end...

Leonard Cohen says Peter Liddle [frontman] from Dry the River: “When I’m in broken heart situations, I don’t tend to listen to sentimental albums. I listen to angry records and celebratory records but I’m a sucker to Leonard Cohen.  He has a way with words and he seems to be a wise old Dalai Lama sort of thing and I feel like he’s been through the ringer with heartbreak.”

'Love Is Hell' by Ryan Adams says Dan Legresley [guitar] from The Milk: "'Love Is Hell' by Ryan Adams - and not just because of the title! It's a perfectly sequenced album, a headphones record. The best way I can describe it is when you're on a flight back from a great two weeks somewhere and you're a bit deflated it gets you feeling good again. ‘Anyone Wanna Take Me Home’ sums it all up perfectly, the whole thing is full of these bittersweet endings, but they all add up to something happier. You start off wallowing in it and feel uplifted by the end of it."

‘Greatest Hits’ by A Tribe Called Quest says Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs: “A break up album? That’s quite difficult. A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘Greatest Hits’.”

Slipknot says Skream from Magnetic Man: "Slipknot?" [Benga and Artwork laugh]

‘Vital Signs’ by Diagram Of The Heart says Kye Sones [singer] from, erm, Diagram Of The Heart: “I think our album is a brilliant album to mend a broken heart because that's what a lot of the songs on the record are all about. So a lot of the songs are sort of fixing what's gone wrong, and it was a lot of questions being asked. I think a lot of people relate to the tracks so it's quite a good album for anyone that's been in that position."

Alison Krauss says Matt Taylor [guitarist] from Dry the River: “I just listen to silly country ballads like Alison Krauss.”

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