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For those souls without significants on Valentine's Day, we present our favorite works that define romantic misery

By Dave McCoy
MSN Entertainment

As the classic rock hit states, love stinks. Along with the good stuff -- partnership and camaraderie and passion and friendship and... more hopefully great sex -- it is also full of stress and mini-battles and compromise and ... well, usually it fails. Miserably.

But what sucks in life is great for artists, because, let's face it, the greatest works of art come from pain -- not happiness (if you want to debate that with me, head to the message boards). I'd rather look at paintings from Picasso's Blue Period than any of Monet's work. "Chinatown" makes me feel more than any saccharine, escapist romantic comedy. And music? That's the easiest of all ... I'd rather revel in the misery of others than hear about how wonderful love can be. Well, usually. To listen to songs and albums about romantic heartbreak is to discover that artists feel the crush as much as you do yet turn it into something beautiful, otherwordly.

On that cheerful note, for this lamest of holidays, I offer my 13 favorite breakup albums. Being unlucky in love deserves that number of records. Listening to these albums has seen me through many a rough time. They are like old friends you can depend on when times are tough. And they are awfully good drinking buddies. Obviously, this list is completely subjective, so please send us e-mail and fill in my gaps.

Let the wallowing begin!

Related: Top "I Hate Love" Songs of All Time
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