Loving You

When the Beatles proclaimed "all you need is love" they weren't wrong — but when all you need is that perfect expression of love from one person to another, you're better off with a selection of the world's greatest songwriters and performers, so that you can tailor the tune to your devotion . . . which is where these Essentials d'amour come in. Adele sets the tone with her exceptional cover of the tender Bob Dylan classic, "Make You Feel My Love", rowdy folk crew Mumford & Sons dials it down with the achingly delicate "I Gave You All", Robbie Williams takes his love to the rooftops and lets it soar on "Heart and I", and Michael Bublé delivers Van the Man's "Crazy Love" with deep but understated passion.

If these songs are darts of love, Minnie Riperton hits triple top, in Next Steps.

Whichever "you" you have in mind as the recipient of your love, you're sure to find the perfect blend of melody and eloquence here when the time comes to let "you" know how you feel. Katy Perry plays June to her Johnny Cash on "The One That Got Away", emphasizing the unbreakable connection between music and love, Minnie Riperton turns bird song, high notes and a run of "la-la-la-la-la"s into sweet passion on "Lovin' You", Antony Hegarty is all gratitude on "Thank You for Your Love", Sheryl Crow looks to Terence Trent D'Arby for amorous inspiration, and Michael Jackson proves that devotion can be smooth and funky on "Rock With You".

A couple of hairy rockers spread some love, in Deep Cuts.

When you want to let someone know you really, truly, deeply love them, sometimes it's best to tell them with . . . hair. Specifically, a couple of the most hirsute men in rock — Robert Plant, who goes old school with "Falling in Love Again", and Jon Bon Jovi, blasting through "I'll Be There for You" like his life depended on it. Elsewhere, Kelly Clarkson makes her intentions clear on "I Want You", then gets the Glee treatment on "My Life Would Suck Without You", while a remixed John Lennon delivers one his most affecting love-letters, "Woman", and Luther Vandross sends his devotion into soft focus on the smooth-as-silk "So Amazing".

Countless bards, poets and troubadours — from Shakespeare to Soulja Boy Tell 'Em — have made explicit the connection between music and true love. While there are as many subtle varieties of love as there are songs in the world, we've decided to shift the focus of these Essentials to expressions of devotion from one person to another. When love is that focussed, that intense, the rest of the world may as well exist in another galaxy, and that feeling of delirious, liberating one-ness is brilliantly reflected by these tracks, whether that's Leona Lewis taking on the Robert Flack classic "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", Fyfe Dangerfield borrowing Billy Joel's "She Always a Woman" or Paolo Nutini getting freaky, baby, with the words that best capture these Essentials: "Loving You".