Aussie Love Songs

Love is universal — it doesn't matter who you are, or where you're from, we all feel the power of a great love song . . . but great love songs with a distinct Aussie flavour, now that's recipe for something really special. In a land down under, every Angry Anderson comes with a "Suddenly," and Silverchair delivers "Miss You Love" when romance demands, so open up your heart with INXS, whose electrifying bluesy ballad "Never Tear Us Apart" forever changed the landscape of love in the summer of '88. We've also got Sia's exquisite "Breathe Me" from 2004's Colour the Small One, and the amorous Bee Gees groove that transcended its disco-era origins, "How Deep Is Your Love."

Don't say it with chocolates — say it with Powderfinger, in Next Steps.

If you're in the mood for Aussie love, you're going to satisfy your heart's desire right here, even if that means throwing in a Kiwi twist . . . in the case of "Message to My Girl" — a harmony-filled Split Enz classic and one of the greatest love songs to come out of the Antipodes in the '80s. That passion-filled decade also gave us the acoustic 12-string bliss of the Church's "Under the Milky Way," while the '90s brought the sultry synth-pop of Kylie's "Surrender" and Powderfinger marked the turn of the millennium with "My Happiness" from fourth studio album Odyssey Number Five. First Australian Idol winner Guy Sebastian melted hearts in '03 with "Angels Brought Me Here."

Barnes, Goodrem, Geyer . . . you'll find these emissaries of Aussie love in Deep Cuts.

There's an endless number of ways to express love through music, and country folk would contend that one of the most effective methods is to combine a piano with a pedal-steel and a gorgeous, mellow vocal — and Troy Cassar-Daley does all of that on the simply brilliant, "I Love You." Delta Goodrem adds extra honey to the creamy pop ballad "Lost Without You," which topped the singles charts in 2003, Jimmy Barnes dives headlong into a deep well of classic soul for "When Something Is Wrong With My Baby," Renée Geyer belts out '70s standard "What Do I Do on Sunday Morning" and Kate Miller-Heidke explores intimacy with the subtle strokes of "Space They Cannot Touch."

The catalogue of Aussie Love Songs is one of the richest, most varied and most affecting in all of pop, translating the ways of the heart into songs that last a lifetime. From the Easybeats and the Bee Gees to Angus & Julia Stone and the McClymonts, our homegrown artists have defined the very landscape of love, and these Essentials form a collection of their greatest work: where would we be without the Hunner's "Throw Your Arms Around Me" or Savage Garden's "Truly Madly Deeply"? How far would the soundtrack of our love lives fall short, if we couldn't include Paul Kelly's "To Her Door" or Olivia Newton-John's "Hopelessly Devoted to You"? Well, you need not sweat over the answers to such questions, because we included all those great tracks, and many more, right here.