When The i Paper culture desk decided to compile a list of the best love songs this century for Valentine’s Day, we had no idea what was to come. Fierce debates. Heated arguments. Slammed doors (well, metaphorical – our office is open plan). It turns out love songs are precious and personal. Whatever your musical taste, levels of cynicism or relationship history, they matter to us all enormously.
We narrowed down our list (eventually) to a specific set of criteria: no covers, romantic not platonic, and still with feelings of love, even if the relationship is over.
This doesn’t mean only happy songs declaring undying devotion – but phoenixes rising triumphantly from the ashes and all-out bitterness are not on the cards. Nor are the many songs that feature the word “love” but actually invoke lust.
So there is plenty of sadness and heartbreak in this list, as well as joy and togetherness. There is anguish and ecstasy and negotiation and wallowing and crying and dancing. There is everything, in other words, that 21st century love has to offer – and whether our list overlaps with yours or not, we hope you’ll agree they’re all loaded to the brim with feeling. Through pop, indie, R&B, hip-hop, country, rock and alternative, from acoustic ditties to cinematic epics, these songs stand out as musical pillars of the past 25 years.
Don your headphones and ready your pitchforks: here are The i Paper’s 50 best love songs of the 21st century.
50. Kings of Leon – Use Somebody (2008)
Late 2010s indie rock had a sort of roaring emotion only accessible via electric guitars, a racing drum beat and a troubled frontman. Kings of Leon’s second biggest hit has all that and more with its “whoa” chorus and a simple, powerful refrain.
49. Tyler, the Creator – See You Again (2017)
It was something of a surprise when alt-hip-hop artist Tyler, the Creator showed his soppy side. That, of course, is the draw of this gentle confession about how love has him in its thrall. “Cupid hit me,” he sings, breaking through his usually tough veneer.
48. Sugababes – About You Now (2007)
This might seem like a standard girly bop, but listen closer and it’s surprisingly wistful and emotive. The rising and falling chorus melody propels its emotional cycle of hope and disappointment – the perfect combination of sweet and sad.
47. McFly – All About You (2005)
Perhaps you only ever saw McFly as tween pin-ups, but this song endures as a romantic classic. Chugging along over a sunny acoustic guitar, frontman Tom Fletcher sings sweetly of his devotion: “I would answer all your wishes / If you asked me to”. Love in its purest, most innocent form.
46. Christina Perri – A Thousand Years (2011)
When this song soundtracked the third Twilight film, it had lonely teen girls everywhere silent-sobbing in the cinema – that promise of a life-changing love, the wistful anguish for it to hurry up and happen. Whatever you think of the vampire franchise, you can’t deny the song’s heart-throbbing magnificence.
45. Leona Lewis – Bleeding Love (2007)
This song was too good to have been the breakout single of an X Factor contestant – but then, Leona Lewis was too good for The X Factor. Her honeyed vocal does much of the heavy lifting, with soulful riffs and flawless top notes imbuing already lovelorn lyrics with even more pain and feeling.
44. Big Thief – Born for Loving You (2023)
In this country-inflected masterpiece, every moment since the birth of the universe has been building up to Adrianne Lenker and her partner meeting and falling in love. Yet somehow it doesn’t feel overly sentimental, offering instead a matter-of-fact take on romantic destiny.
43. Dido – White Flag (2003)
Dido was never cool. In fact, her brand of trip-hop-tinged easy listening was mercilessly mocked – but the power of this song endures. The verses are the real star of the show here. But there’s deep romance in the nautically themed no-surrender chorus.
42. The National – I Need My Girl (2014)
This characteristically velvety song plunges us into grief and longing. The simple title refrain, sung in Matt Berninger’s deep baritone, is undercut in the verse by defiance: “I am good, I am grounded/Davy says that I look taller”. Then he wilts: “I keep feeling smaller and smaller”. Pure and painful.
41. John Legend – All of Me (2013)
John Legend’s 2013 hit precedes him: his silky-smooth voice, combined with soulful piano, produces an outpouring of intensity. It’s bolstered by the real-life context of his famously lovely relationship with the model Chrissy Teigen, to whom the song is dedicated.
40. Hot Chip – One Life Stand (2010)
The oeuvre of Hot Chip is far from unemotional – but this 2010 hit stands out for its romance. Cheeky and shy, feel-good and thoughtful, it plays on the intensity of a one-night stand and asks if it could become lifelong commitment. It’s quietly beautiful, at once light-hearted and vulnerable.
39. Flyte – Even on Bad Days (2023)
Gentle and honest, this profoundly moving song is about maintaining long-lasting love – and the beauty in its quotidian nature. “Even on bad days, I will fold your clothes,” sings frontman Will Taylor over soft, lilting guitar, paying tribute throughout to the tensions and humdrum details that, between the fireworks, come to define a relationship.
38. Vanessa Carlton – A Thousand Miles (2002)
Everyone recognises the opening piano notes of this Noughties classic. The syncopation, from the famous riff to the chorus pay-off, elevates it beyond standard pop, and the lyrics – “I would walk a thousand miles if I could just see you… tonight” – are high drama, speaking to that wind-through-the-hair feeling of all-consuming romance.
37. Boygenius – True Blue (2023)
This thoughtful mid-tempo ditty from the sad-girl supergroup is an ode to tough love – the grit that makes relationships both frustrating and real. Like its subject matter, this song is both warm and cuts to the bone.
36. Take That – Rule the World (2007)
The 90s heartthrobs were well past their heyday by 2007, but they found a new lease of life in this soppy but soaring ballad that dares you not to stick your lighter in the air. It’s cheesy, sure, but try to deny the power of Gary Barlow’s falsetto in that big chorus as it takes off.
35. Lorde – Supercut (2017)
Lorde writes songs that, if they could, would smell like rain on tarmac. With glossy Jack Antonoff production, here she sings about romanticising a failed relationship – with a charged, pacy bridge and surrendering chorus full of longing.
34. Ray LaMontagne – Hold You in My Arms (2004)
Sometimes the simplest statements can be the most meaningful – and it doesn’t get much better than someone telling you they could hold you in their arms forever. The American folk singer’s smoky, raspy voice adds a desperation to this song about how being with your lover can quieten your “bad dreams and your fears”.
33. Billie Eilish – Birds of a Feather (2024)
Gen Z pop princess Eilish is always understated – and this smash hit stays true to that while exuding doe-eyed romance. In an almost whispered single-note melody, Eilish admits that this “might not be forever” – “But if it’s forever / It’s even better”. A tranquil yet compulsive track that captures the importance of not letting the right person go.
32. LCD Soundsystem – I Can Change (2010)
What’s more romantic than prostrating yourself to grant someone’s wishes? This propulsive 2010 anthem pulsates with zinging synths that give it even more desperate energy. From the first chorus (“Never change”) to the last (“I can change… if it helps you fall in love”), this song bobs you along with the current of love’s endless push-and-pull.
31. Black Country, New Road – The Place Where He Inserted the Blade (2022)
This seven-minute epic builds and builds, as then-frontman Isaac Wood’s voice cracks with feeling through irony-tinged lyrics: “Every time I try to make lunch for anyone else in my head / I end up dreaming of you”. As the chorus explodes in a cacophony of strings, saxes and voices, it makes you want to scream at the sky.
30. Biffy Clyro – Many of Horror (2009)
With more than a hint of emo, Biffy Clyro’s “broken fairy tale” is about the pain and intensity of love and its sacrifices – the feeling that you can’t live without someone. Frontman Simon Neil’s lightning-bolt tenor – “I’ll take a bruise / I know you’re worth it” – makes it quite the ride.
29. Wolf Alice – Don’t Delete the Kisses (2017)
Ellie Rowsell and co showed a softer side with this part mumbled stream of consciousness and part fearful cry. “What if it’s not meant for me/ Love?” she belts in the chorus, while the verses worry about “writing you a message / that I’ll probably never send”. It’s relatable and achingly sad.
28. Alicia Keys – If I Ain’t Got You (2003)
From the opening piano notes to the soaring chorus, this ballad is a timeless classic. It’s got some of the best soul vocals in living memory, and perfectly meshes music and words to convey the all-or-nothing desperation – “I don’t want nothing at all / If it ain’t you, baby” – that comes with being head-over-heels in love.
27. Moldy Peaches – Anyone Else but You (2001)
Cutesy, scratchy and awkward: this 00s-does-80s duet is cassette-tape nostalgia with shy adolescent overtones. Made famous in 2007 by the charming teen pregnancy movie Juno, it trundles along, slightly out of time and slightly pitchy, declaring unwavering love and devotion amid mundanity.
26. Coldplay – Fix You (2005)
Ah, Coldplay – whatever your feelings about the world’s most divisive band, you can’t deny their ability to make you feel. “Fix You”, written to frontman Chris Martin’s then-wife Gwyneth Paltrow amid her grief about her father’s death, is a tender expression of care. And what a soaringly simple, memorable chorus.
25. Lady A – Need You Now (2009)
For good reason, this impassioned ballad became the breakthrough hit for country trio Lady A. Built on the agony of missing someone, it’s full of earthy harmonies and restless agony. We writhe, pine and wallow, until the punch in the gut: “I’d rather hurt than feel nothin’ at all.”
24. Imogen Heap – Goodnight and Go (2005)
Made mainstream by Ariana Grande in 2018, Imogen Heap’s glimmering original still hits you every time. A meditation on unrequited love, it’s as heartbreaking as it is ethereally beautiful. In her signature vocodered voice, Heap’s musical sigh of surrender – “Just say goodnight and go” – cuts to the core.
23. James Blake – I’ll Come Too (2019)
James Blake’s 2019 album Assume Form seemed to be written in a lovestruck haze. Of all its sensitive, melodic songs, “I’ll Come Too” stands out as a vulnerable track in which Blake asks, shyly, if he can follow his prospective lover around – from New York to LA to “the brink”.
22. Lady Gaga – Yoü and I (2011)
Chronically underrated, this is a phenomenal example of Gaga’s powerhouse vocal and classic songwriting ability – a scream-in-the-car-worthy banger about the one that got away. The track builds over a stomping beat, with Gaga adamant that “this time I’m not leaving without you”.
21. Susanne Sundfør – Memorial (2015)
“To write the perfect love song you have to be heartbroken,” the Norwegian singer-songwriter told one interviewer. “Memorial” packages all the drama and outrage of lost love into a wildly ambitious 10-minute track that veers into a glorious orchestral break before returning to the exquisitely vulnerable refrain: “You took off my dress, and you never put it on again.”
20. Frank Ocean – Thinkin Bout You (2012)
There is feverish anxiety in Ocean’s most famous slow jam. “I’ve been thinkin’ bout you”, goes the refrain – and then, suddenly jumping up the octave in the chorus, he wonders: “Or do you not think so far ahead? / ’Cause I’ve been thinkin’ bout forever”. As it loops on a warm but uneasy groove, we are plunged alongside him into that bittersweet feeling of being painfully in love.
19. Laura Marling – For You (2020)
Marling’s music is usually full of abstraction – beautiful, sophisticated, but with a cynical edge and a tendency to hold the listener at arm’s length. Here, she takes off every piece of armour and expresses, via a lullaby-like melody, the miracle of finding love.
18. Rihanna – Love on the Brain (2016)
Rihanna isn’t known for power ballads – but this is one of her all-time greats. Showcasing her vocals to their full, husky potential, the track meanders on mid-tempo arpeggios as she pines for a person she just cannot seem to please.
17. Perfume Genius – On the Floor (2020)
The urgency of desire, the pain of trying to get over someone, all-consuming love – all this and more can be felt in this masterpiece. With feverishly intense lyrics and idly calm music, we go through the motions with him: “I promise every day / To change / I cross out his name on the page”.
16. Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper – Shallow (2018)
A Star Is Born turned out to be the most impactful, tear-inducing love story since The Notebook. About two people diving into a fated romance at a period of intense vulnerability – “we’re far from the shallow now” – Gaga and Cooper’s chemistry comes to a climax in this song.
15. Paolo Nutini – Last Request (2006)
This Noughties classic was once everywhere – and it’s endured for good reason. An ode to the love that lingers even when a relationship is over, Nutini delivers it with exquisite tenderness. “Sure, I can accept we’re going nowhere / But one last time let’s go there” – it taps into that oh-so-human desire for connection and the triumph of heart over head.
14. Richard Hawley – For Your Lover Give Some Time (2009)
We make all sorts of promises when falling in love and here, the Sheffield crooner makes several pledges: to stop smoking, come home early, drink less, to steal flowers from the graveyard. It’s these quotidian images Hawley conjures up that makes this melancholy love song so timeless.
13. Michael Kiwanuka – Cold Little Heart (2016)
With an extraordinary cinematic quality, this builds, slowly, with an echoing choir and strings, before a mournful guitar introduces the tragic melody. Your heart is already breaking by the opening line, and when the chorus arrives, we feel we can see into Kiwanuka’s soul.
12. Keane – Somewhere Only We Know (2004)
An expansive indie-rock banger, Keane’s best-known track only reached number one when Lily Allen covered it for the 2013 John Lewis Christmas advert – but the original remains a singalong classic that speaks to the beauty of a relationship’s contained nature.
11. Arcade Fire – Crown of Love (2004)
Arcade Fire’s first album, Funeral, was a whirlwind of romance both big-and-small-R. This melancholy track starts slowly, crawling along with dark lines like “my love keeps growing… Just like a cancer” – before eventually bursting into an uplifting finish with a flourish: “Your name is the only word that I can say.” The whole song aches, and then it soars.
10. Arctic Monkeys – Mardy Bum (2006)
Its everyday struggle, its poignant treatment of frustrations and limitations and misunderstandings, make this one of the best, most unlikely love songs out there. “I’ve seen your frown and it’s like looking down the barrel of a gun” – if you’ve ever loved, you will know exactly what he’s talking about.
9. Paramore – The Only Exception (2009)
A paean of hope: this is Paramore’s admission that love really does exist. All the evidence points towards failure, sings Hayley Williams in a gentle lilt, but somehow this person, this relationship, has triumphed.
8. Chappell Roan – Good Luck, Babe! (2024)
Chappell Roan’s breakthrough single is a masterfully creative love song about the unique pain of loving someone who cannot love you back because they refuse to acknowledge their sexuality. Any light sarcasm is dispelled by the ache that runs through the mid-tempo 80s synths – and, of course, that once-in-a-career lyric: “You’d have to stop the world just to stop the feeling.”
7. Taylor Swift – Fearless (2008)
Taylor Swift’s work has become more complex and nuanced as she’s grown older (note: folklore’s mature and poetic “Peace”), but it’s in her early songs you find love in its purest form. “Fearless” is a sparkling track about going wherever love pulls you. In many ways, it’s her blueprint – and a beautifully uplifting tribute to love.
6. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Maps (2003)
Conceived with staggering simplicity, “Maps” implores a lover to stay. Lead singer Karen O cried real tears in the music video, where, on the shoot, her then-boyfriend didn’t turn up to say goodbye before a tour. They add tragedy, but the chorus alone – “Wait – they don’t love you like I love you”, repeated again and again, has plenty.
5. Ed Sheeran – Thinking Out Loud (2014)
However you feel about the big man of small guitars, Ed Sheeran soundtracks the weddings of the British public for good reason. This stripped-back tearjerker relies on just an acoustic guitar and Sheeran’s expressive, nimble voice. The chorus – from “Take me into your loving arms” to “We found love just where we are” – will pump the hearts of the UK for many years yet.
4. Beyoncé – Love on Top (2011)
Beyoncé has long moved onto more ambitious creative projects – but this single was one of the last to showcase fully her abilities as an old-school entertainer and once-in-a-generation vocalist. It’s a supremely uplifting song celebrating the high of being head-over-heels – with a satisfying musical metaphor in those skyrocketing key-changes.
3. Adele – Someone Like You (2011)
It’s difficult to believe Adele wrote this at just 21 – but then, perhaps you need the raw pain of youth to create such a gut-punch classic. Who among us can’t relate to that disarming opening line – “I heard that you’re settled down” – and then the resignation to dashed hopes in that heart-wrenching chorus?
2. Amy Winehouse – Love is a Losing Game (2006)
Simple yet devastating, this is surely Amy Winehouse’s masterpiece. “For you I was a flame” – an opening line delivered with total throwaway nonchalance that cuts through you like a knife. It’s slow, resigned and comes back again and again to that refrain – “Love / Is a losing game” – as she slowly convinces both herself, and us.
1. Coldplay – Yellow (2000)
“Look at the stars / Look how they shine for you”: the enduring emotional power of Coldplay’s debut single cannot be denied. Not only that, but its expression of love, rooted in the vastness of the night sky, is so pure and so whole that it manages to be a tearjerker, a crowd-pleaser and a rousing anthem on the strength and eternal power of love all at the same time. Twenty-five years on, it still doesn’t miss.
