Various Artists

He's already had his way with Christmas, but has any holiday come closer to practically begging for a John Waters mixtape than Valentine's Day? OK, not counting Mother's Day. The director delivers in style here, saluting the season with 14 dependable odes to true love, untrue lovers, twisted sex, and lonely frogs. And much like his post-Polyester career, the compilation's charms are a sweetly subversive assortment. Waters eases you into the date like a proper young suitor from Hairspray with Patience & Prudence's purely innocuous girl-group valentine, "Tonight You Belong to Me," before leading you into the porno booth with the decadent post-glam swagger of Elton Motello's "Jet Boy Jet Girl." The latter is a kink-rock classic. Sample line: "I like to hit him on the head until he's dead/ the sight of blood is such a high/ ooh hoo hoo hoo/ He gives me head." Several other highlights here are just as good, from Tina Turner kicking ass and taking names as a brokenhearted wedding-crasher in the gospel-flavored Ike & Tina classic "All I Can Do Is Cry" to Josie Cotton's timeless "Johnny Are You Queer?" But one of Waters' own stars, Edith Massey, struts right in and steals the show with her outrageous take on "Big Girls Don't Cry." — Ed Masley