What Love Is, According To These Songs: Vol. 1

Just in time for Valentine's Day, we begin a three-part series featuring songs about what "Love Is." A wide variety of definitions are offered within – some good, some bad, and some downright weird. But all thoroughly enjoyable!  ~  JH

1)  Pat Benatar  ~  “Love Is A Battlefield”

2)  Johnny Mathis  ~  “Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing”

3)  Chrisette Michele  ~  “Love Is You”

4)  The Darkness  ~  “Love Is Only A Feeling”

5)  Frozen Cast  ~  “Love Is An Open Door”

6)  Steven Tyler  ~  “Love Is Your Name”

7)  Dolly Parton  ~  “Love Is Like A Butterfly”

8)  Christopher Cross  ~  “Love Is Love (In Any Language)”

9)  LeAnn Rimes  ~  “Love Is An Army”

10)  Muse  ~  “Neutron Star Collision (Love Is Forever)”

11)  k.d. lang  ~  “Love Is Everything”

12)  The Hollies  ~  “Love Is The Thing”

13)  Sophie Ellis-Bextor  ~  “Love Is A Camera”

14)  Phil Vassar  ~  “Love Is A Beautiful Thing”

15)  Rod Stewart  ~  “Love Is”

16)  Girls Aloud  ~  “Love Is The Key”

17)  Styx  ~  “Love Is The Ritual”

18)  Katie Melua  ~  “Love Is A Silent Thief”

19)  DC Talk  ~  “Luv Is A Verb”

20)  Sheryl Crow  ~  “Love Is A Good Thing”

21)  Lou Rawls  ~  “Love Is A Hurtin’ Thing”

22)  Linda Ronstadt  ~  “Love Is A Rose”

23)  Aloe Blacc  ~  “Love Is The Answer”

24)  Mickey & Sylvia  ~  “Love Is Strange”

25)  Arctic Monkeys  ~  “Love Is A Laserquest”  (Wait…WHAT?)

Oscar-Winning Original Songs

Here's a collection of songs from the past 20 years, each of which has won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. I'm not even going to front – the FROZEN song is in here, and that's pretty much why I put this post together in the first place. I haven't yet seen the movie, but everybody's talking about it and that song, and I try to stay as topical as possible in my blog posts, so…there ya go! Enjoy!  ~  JH

BLOGGER'S NOTE:  The artists listed here are not necessarily (and usually aren't) the actual Oscar-winning songwriters, but rather the performer(s) in each of the linked videos. The movie each song is from is noted in parentheses after the title, and the year of the movie's release follows is in parentheses after that.

1)  Elton John  ~  "Can You Feel The Love Tonight?"  (The Lion King) (1994)

2)  Judy Kuhn  ~  "Colors Of The Wind"  (Pocahontas) (1995)

3)  Madonna  ~  "You Must Love Me"  (Evita) (1996)

4)  Céline Dion  ~  "My Heart Will Go On"  (Titanic) (1997)

5)  Mariah Carey & Whitney Houston  ~  "When You Believe"  (The Prince Of Egypt) (1998)

6)  Phil Collins  ~  "You'll Be In My Heart"  (Tarzan) (1999)

7)  Bob Dylan  ~  "Things Have Changed"  (Wonder Boys) (2000)

8)  John Goodman & Billy Crystal  ~  "If I Didn't Have You"  (Monsters, Inc.) (2001)

9)  Eminem  ~  "Lose Yourself"  (8 Mile) (2002)

10)  Annie Lennox  ~  "Into The West"  (The Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King) (2003)

11)  Jorge Drexler  ~  "Al otro lado del río"  (The Motorcycle Diaries) (2004)

12)  Three 6 Mafia ft. Taraji P. Henson  ~  "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp"  (Hustle & Flow) (2005)

13)  Melissa Etheridge  ~  "I Need To Wake Up"  (An Inconvenient Truth) (2006)

14)  Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová  ~  "Falling Slowly"  (Once) (2007)

15)  Sukhvinder Singh, Mahalaxmi Iyer, Vijay Prakash, & Tanvi Shah  ~  "Jai Ho"  (Slumdog Millionaire) (2008)

16)  Jeff Bridges  ~  "The Weary Kind"  (Crazy Heart) (2009)

17)  Randy Newman  ~  "We Belong Together"  (Toy Story 3) (2010)

18)  Jason Segel, Peter Linz, Bill Barretta, & Jim Parsons  ~  "Man Or Muppet"  (The Muppets) (2011)

19)  Adele  ~  "Skyfall"  (Skyfall) (2012)

20)  Idina Menzel  ~  "Let It Go"  (Frozen) (2013)