Which artists did best at not relying on love songs?

Although I love many love related songs, I feel that artists have more replay value for me when their catalog is more varied. An album where 80-100% of its songs are love or heartbreak songs is less likely to have replay value for me versus an album with more varied subject matter.

A certain band who's name I won't mention achieved this, at least from late 1965 on.

 

R.E.M.

 

Lou Reed

 

Iron Maiden

 

I don't own the entire catalogue of Iron Maiden, but I would be surprised if they ever wrote a love song.....

 

nah..."Im Waiting for My Man" is most certainly a love song.

 

Ha ha! Great minds...

 

David Bowie

 

Big Black.

 

I thought this was most bands outside of country, soul and mainstream pop.

 

But he didn’t rely on love songs.

 

Pere Ubu and The Feelies come to mind, at least for their best, pre-reunion years.

 

Probably Acdc, to the point where the only love song they ever recorded is on the Australian debut album, and has vanished out of existence

 

Surely "songs about loving" was

 

nothing but love all over the Blue Mask album.

 

The Fall

 

CCR and The Band.

 

Genesis

 

Frank Zappa.

Even going as far as to say:
“I detest love lyrics. I think one of the causes of bad mental health in the United States is that people have been raised on 'love lyrics'.
“You're a young kid and you hear all those 'love lyrics', right? Your parents aren't telling you the truth about love, and you can't really learn about it in school. You're getting the bulk of your 'behaviour norms' mapped out for you in the lyrics to some dumb ----ing love song. It's a subconscious training that creates desire for an imaginary situation which will never exist for you. People who buy into that mythology go through life feeling that they got cheated out of something.
[...]
“When they get into drooling about love as a 'romantic concept' -- especially in the lyrics of sensitive singer/songwriter types -- that's another shove in the direction of bad mental health.”
(from 'The Real Frank Zappa Book')

 

Radiohead.

 

John Fogerty solo (his compositions) as well, with "Joy of My Life" the exception I can think of.

 

I was going to make a crude joke and say “Prowler”.

But how about “22 Acacia Avenue”? The singer is definitely in love with Charlotte.

 

Add blues based rock to that. Led Zeppelin's catalog is very love song heavy, for instance.

 

This idea that there's some sort of fault with songs that revolve around love or heartbreak is amusing to me. I legitimately feel sorry for any fully grown adult that can't relate to these types of songs.

 

I think that metal bands, generally speaking, do well with this.

But often they make up for it by relying too much on other themes. Such as the D&D style heroism of Dio.