"Love Stinks" is a song written by Peter Wolf and Seth Justman that was the title track of the J. Geils Band's 1980 album Love Stinks. The song was released as a single and peaked in the US at #38, spending three weeks in the Top 40. In Canada, the song reached number 15.Joan Jett covered the song for the soundtrack of the 1996 movie Mr. Wrong. The song was also featured in the film Opie Gets Laid. It was also covered by Adam Sandler in the movie The Wedding Singer and by Himalayaz with Ms. Toi for the movie Love Stinks.

The lyrics describe a love triangle in which two participants experience unrequited love, before segueing into a description of love gone sour in general. The lyrics may have been inspired by J. Geils Band lead singer Peter Wolf's marriage to actress Faye Dunaway, which ended in a 1979 divorce. Author Maury Dean describes the opening of the song as "ponderous Power Metal." Dean describes the bands playing in the refrain as generating "wild waves of flame," the guitars as "fire-breathing" and Wolf's vocals in the "yeah yeah" portion of the chorus as snarling with "heavy metal glee." Justman provides extensive keyboards, which Associated Press critic James Simon feels gives the song "a little extra zing." Viglione describes the riff as "Lou Reed's 'Vicious' as performed by his Rock & Roll Animal band on Lou Reed Live at half-speed," also noting that it is a hard rock version of the riff from "Louie, Louie."Rolling Stone critic Rob Sheffield notes that the riff was later used by Nirvana in the song "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

...
Wikipedia