Date Night

Shakespeare said it best — doesn't he always? — with "If music be the food of love, play on!" Whether your next romantic interlude brings you your heart's desire or just another sad tale to spill down at the bar, we've got the artists, the songs, and the vibe to make every date a date to remember. Let's start with Maroon 5, balancing on the knifepoint of detachment and devotion in the Auto-Tuned cool of "She Will Be Loved." Follow that up with the gorgeous simplicity of Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova's Academy Award®-winning duet on "Falling Slowly," capturing the butterfly-wing fragility of love's first blooming bud. And if you could bottle the smouldering desire Norah Jones radiates in the smoky sensuality of "Turn Me On," you'd probably need asbestos gloves to handle it. In Next Steps, we bring a little alt-rockin' goodness to the mix in all its shades and colors, from playful to poignant.

Love is as personal and as individual as a fingerprint, coming not only in every human shape and size, but also every musical one as well, as you'll hear in our Next Steps. The Postal Service spins their quirky-sweet musical web to a helium high with a fizzy snapshot of happy-get-lucky euphoria in the techno-indie joyride of "Such Great Heights." Meanwhile, Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals lay back into a breezy island groove for the loose-limbed sugar-pop funk of "Steal My Kisses." Snow Patrol takes it completely in the opposite direction with four-and-a- half minutes of soul-baring vulnerability spilling out over a storm surge of strings and electric guitar in "Chasing Cars," while Sarah McLachlan captures the very essence of "Sweet Surrender." In Deep Cuts, date night gets a double dose of dreamy chic, and then we follow it up with a bracing chaser.

After the movie, or the coffee, or the concert, there's always that moment of truth: do you wanna do this again? Don't worry about being tongue-tied; just let our Deep Cuts speak your heart. No matter how dreamy your date is, it's a fair bet that he or she will have a tough time matching the otherworldly elegance of Hope Sandoval's ethereal vocal on Mazzy Star's "Fade Into You." Speaking of elegant, Roxy Music provides a textbook definition, stylish as the pop of a magnum of Moët being opened on the French Riviera, with Avalon's "More Than This." And, finally, if ever there were hope for those of us who eyeball love through a skeptic's lens, it's the Magnetic Fields' driving genius Stephin Merritt, who pits romance against cynicism in "The Book of Love" and proves that the deepest human emotion, no matter how weird or corny, conquers even the most jaded heart.

Dating is possibly the most exquisitely fun torture since the advent of the Slurpee-induced brain freeze; otherwise, why would we do it over and over and over again? And there are as many kinds of dates as there are daters: cute ones, ugly ones, unmitigated disasters, and the "OMG-I-can't-believe-I've-finally-found-my-absolute-soul-mate!" ones we all dream of, but rarely, if ever, get. Not that we're bitter. We can't help you with the next entry in your little black book, sad to say, but we can make sure you always get a perfect 10 when it comes to the music. From John Mayer to Joss Stone, from Beck to Beyoncé, we've got all the right sounds, from all your favourite artists, to accompany an evening filled with exhilaration, anticipation, chance, romance, and, yes, maybe even a little terror. But we wouldn't have it any other way.