Walk into any high street record shop and their racks spill over with love song compilation albums.

Normally called something appalling like 5001 Of The Most Illness Inducing Love Songs In The World EVAH, and containing a cornucopia of the slushiest, slowest ballads known to man, spread over ten CDs, they'll include serial offenders such as I Want To Know What Love Is by Foreigner, Truly, Madly Deeply by Savage Garden and Pete Cetera's Glory Of Love.

And of course no compilation would be complete without entries from Barry White, Celine Dion, Toni Braxton, Eva Cassidy and Chicago.

February is definitely the month when many of us are in the mood for love or, as these albums would suggest, a bit of light flirtation set to a mid-80s power-ballad soundtrack.

But as there are hundreds of love songs out there, what makes the good ones stand out from the cheesy crowd?

In my opinion, Here, There And Everywhere by The Beatles is the best love song of all time and its composer Sir Paul McCartney also believes it's the best tune he's ever written, so who are we mere mortals to question that?

This song describes love in a way most of us want to, if only we weren't hampered by nerves, embarrassment or a simple lack of articulation.

Written about Paul's then girlfriend, Jane Asher, in 1966, Here, There And Everywhere is, lyrically at least, breathtakingly simple: all the protagonist wants and needs is this person by his side.

“I want her everywhere and if she's beside me I know I need never care,”

it goes.

Not everyone can match that level of beauty in their songwriting, though, and for every classic of the genre there are hundreds, if not thousands, that rely on a more cliched depiction of love.

“Why do birds suddenly appear, every time you are near?” might sound romantic, but sorry, Carpenters fans, it's nothing more than a marriage of some cute imagery and a convenient rhyming couplet. No one actually thinks that when they fall in love.

The finest love songs, for my money, are the sort which dare to explore the extremes of love.

There Is A Light That Never Goes Out by Manchester miserablists The Smiths is a perfect example.

It might on the surface sound depressing — Morrissey is, after all, singing about dying in a bus accident — but dwell on the prose for a little longer and it might be one of the most glorious declarations of love ever written.

“And if a ten-ton truck, kills the both of us, to die by your side, well the pleasure, the privilege is mine.”

Here he is, having just been kicked out of his home by his parents, passenger to someone he loves so deeply (and secretly) that if it all came to end there and then, he wouldn't care one bit.

Admittedly that might be pushing the argument a little far, but love isn't like a Richard Curtis film, where everyone lives happily ever after in a multi-million pound Notting Hill townhouse. It's stranger and way more complex than that.

Into My Arms by Nick Cave is another example of a more twisted take on the Big L.

As the intimidating Antipodean states in the song's opening line, he doesn't believe in God. Throughout the rest of the song, however, he argues there's only one thing on earth that could prove the existence of a divine being — his heavenly partner.

You want a bold statement? They don't come much more powerful than that.

Of course, not all love songs have to make such grand gestures.

Sometimes just phrasing something slightly differently will do the trick.

Take The Beatles' She Loves You.

Written and released in 1963, Lennon and McCartney moved forward from the standard ‘boy loves girl’ ditty. Here, they moved things to the second person narrative and it immediately became more interesting.

The same can be said for Burt Bacharach and Hal David's masterpiece This Guy's In Love With You, which again uses the second person until, of course, the listener realises the eponymous guy is in fact the person singing the song, coyly letting the lucky girl know what's really going on.

Of course, all this wordplay is great for analysis, but sometimes, good old-fashioned lust is the order of the day.

The list of classic, more carnal songs is as long as your arm, but rarely has anyone sounded sexier, or delivered as direct a message of intent, as Marvin Gaye did in Let's Get It On.

Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin also hit a similar spot on their 1969 No 1 single Je t'aime... Moi Non Plus (I Love You... Me Neither), a song deemed so sexy it was banned from the radio in numerous countries upon release.

Maybe all this is missing the point, though? Perhaps the best love song of all is the joyous kind containing a heartfelt message?

You're All I Need To Get By, the wonderful duet by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, hits that mark perfectly, as does Let's Stay Together by Al Green.

Speaking to Al Green last year, he says he’s approached almost every day by someone who was conceived to that record, or met their partner while it played in the background.