If on this most romantic of holidays you find yourself surrounded by blisteringly adorable couples, cooing breathy allegiances of love to one another, plug in those earbuds and get a dose of the Scene staff’s favorite anti-Valentine’s Day tracks.
Songs
Cee Lo Green | "F**k You"
Ah, the sweet sound of romantic revenge. Cee Lo’s fun and flashy song “F**k You” (and that’s the original, not the censored version) is the perfect anthem for the jilted lover on Valentine’s Day, acting simultaneously as a pump-up and a self-empowerment song.
The funky guitar and high-powered saxophone solos make the song irresistibly catchy and, despite its cheesy lyrics, oddly relatable.
-Hoai-Tran Bui
Alabama Shakes | "You Aint Alone"
Lead singer Brittany Howard is more than just the best-dressed person at the Grammys this past weekend. She’s also the incredibly powerful voice behind one of 2012’s best songs for singles (or anyone for that matter): Alabama Shakes’ “You Aint Alone.”
Anybody who’s feeling lonely on Valentine’s Day should grab a box of tissues and play this song.
The song opens with Howard’s soulful, pained voice saying “You aint alone / so why are you lonely.”
And there goes the first tissue.
-Sean Meehan
Marina and the Diamonds | "How to Be A Heartbreaker"
It’s a super fun, flirtatious tune that guides ladies on how to properly break hearts in order to avoid becoming the victims of heartache.
Marina has a darker approach in the love game, but she is a bubblegum babe who doesn’t let any man burst her bubble.
This song will make any woman feel empowered as well as reassured that she can have her cake and eat it, too. Cheers to us!
-Sydney Gore
Joy Division | "Love Will Tear Us Apart"
It’s a classic for a reason. The title alone of this 1979 track by everyone’s favorite post-punk band really drives the message home: love will tear us apart, over and over and over again.
Let quickly-strummed riffs and deep vocals wash over you and slowly quash any fleeting hope you have about relationships. Despite their beautiful beginnings, they can quickly flounder and breed dysfunction, a message you remind yourself of when everyone around you is paired up and holding hands.
-Yohana Desta
Movies
Blue Valentine
“Blue Valentine,” directed by Derek Cianfrance, and starring Michelle Williams (“My Week With Marilyn”) and Ryan Gosling (“The Notebook”), can be described as the ultimate Anti-Valentine’s Day film.
Following two sides of a relationship from its lovely beginning to its bitter end, “Blue Valentine” is a dreary, albeit satisfying, look into the lives of down-to-Earth people with normal travails who simply become tired of each other.
Also, proving that Gosling can be more than a male lead with boyish charm, vis-a-vis “The Notebook,” his performance as the damaged Dean is one of his best.
-David Kahen-Kashi
Being John Malkovich
Aside from just being one of the best movies period, “Being John Malkovich” is a great movie for singles on Valentine’s Day because it reminds you how much easier being single can be.
As a showcase of dysfunctional relationships and selfish behavior, “Being John Malkovich” is just the kind of movie to put relationships in perspective.
-Sean Meehan
American Psycho
If ever the sickeningly sweet Valentine’s Day has ever got you down, let out your pent-up rage with a viewing of “American Psycho.” Christian Bale’s (“The Dark Knight Rises”) psychotic turn as Patrick Bateman is at times disturbing and at times gleefully entertaining.
This film’s blood-stained, satirical view of Wall Street culture and abject consumerism is sure to take your mind off of the greeting card-based holiday and just relish the horrors that materialism can bring to humanity.
-Hoai-Tran Bui
Never Let Me Go
This 2010 adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel is a heartbreakingly beautiful love story that plays with all the emotions as viewers are swept into the tragic world of Kathy H (Carey Mulligan, “Drive”), Tommy (Andrew Garfield, “The Amazing Spider-Man”) and Ruth (Keira Knightley, “Anna Karenina”).
Warning: Viewers will be hit with a wave of severe depression from beginning to end and will probably sob uncontrollably for hours. Grab a box of Kleenex. This film turns the darkest soul into an emotional wreck.
-Sydney Gore
Closer
This star-studded flick (Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman, Clive Owen and Jude Law) follows two couples and the story of how their lives become completely intermingled.
The film shows the unrelentingly cruel side of relationships and examines just how ugly love can be.
Full of twists and turns, “Closer” takes you down familiar roads, then completely flips the script, proving in the simplest ways that you can never really know someone.
It just goes to show that if love doesn’t tear us apart, secrets definitely will.
-Yohana Desta
