10 BEST Ever BREAKUP Albums

Breakups, eh? Ghastly things. The world opens its jaws wide and just swallows you up. The sea rises up and drowns you over and over again, and yet still you remain, broken hearted and listless. Where to go next? What to do with your empty days?

Maybe you’ll fill that relationship void with some music. Maybe there are albums out there that recognise your pain, because the people who wrote those albums went through what you went through?

Here are ten prescriptions for some of the most broken-hearted breakup albums ever. Each is its own universe of longing and hurt, and each has its own gently soothing power. Go and get yourself a glass of something, tuck your feet under the blanket you’ve just thrown over yourself, and get listening to these top 10 breakup albums…

It wasn’t really rumours with this lot, was it? Tales of polyamorous bed-hopping and emotional game-playing were rife within Fleetwood Mac, planet Earth’s horniest band. Still, if we judge activities by their ultimate results then this lot should’ve misbehaved more often, because Rumours was and is by far their giant-est album. Packed full to the brim with soft rock hits, it’s actually a good/bad advert for splitting up and staying together. It will never not be weird to consider Lindsey Buckingham breaking up with Stevie Nicks, then writing a song about it, and then getting her to sing on it. Just think about that for a second.

When I interviewed Amanda Shires a few years ago, she told me at the end that she wasn’t bothered about approving the article because she was a ‘truth talker’. Indeed she is, and oh my goodness that’s what she did recently. Everybody expected a response/report/revenge/something else from Amanda after her divorce from country megaman Jason Isbell, and when it arrived earlier this year, no punches were pulled. No Body’s Girl is less a straight document than a heavily influenced piece of fiction (so it seems to me) but then the best art is always using versions of truth anyway, isn’t it? Shires has always been an example of independence and strength, and even in their happier days, she often spoke and wrote about the more troublesome parts of their marriage.

You could say they’ve actually had duelling breakup albums, with his record Foxes in the Snow released this year too, but that would be childish, wouldn’t it?

Most profitable breakup album ever? Not to sound mercenary about it, but Adele really took that one to the bank! Proof - if it was ever needed - that she's got that ability to really connect with people on an emotional level, simply and effectively. This is one of those records that will never completely vanish: there will always be a need for the healing hymns that are on here, particularly since the end of the record has tones of forgiveness in there, which we all eventually must arrive at if we are to move on.

Hell hath no fury like Alanis scorned. Jagged Little Pill was an astronomically huge album back in 1995, and it brimmed with righteous fury. Alanis was in her early 20s at that point, fully sick of being treated so poorly by her partners, and had an articulation about it that was overwhelmingly effective:

“Every time you speak her name, Does she know how you told me you'd hold me until you died? 'Til you died, but you're still alive! And I'm here, to remind you, Of the mess you left when you went away. It's not fair, to deny me, Of the cross I bear that you gave to me. You oughta know!”

Never has venom sounded so triumphant, nor so righteously expressed.

Nick Cave’s sombre voice and funeral aesthetic are already honed for effective breakup support, but when it happened to him, he delivered one of the most touching, honest and regretful albums of his long career. PJ Harvey was the woman who jilted him, and her spectre is raised in several of the album’s songs (Green Eyes, West Country Girl, Black Hair) amongst other grieving characters. 

It’s a beautiful record, filled with moments of honesty so bruised that they beg to be pocketed and kept for future heartaches.

Lily Allen’s breakup to actor David Harbour has been almost forensically documented on her newest record, West End Girl. Though the official word is that this is a work of fiction, a quick read of the lyrics tell a different tale: this is the truth of a heartbreaking split, from the point of view of the faithful wife. Allen’s language is so everyday and unguarded throughout that it makes the message inarguably clear, and also more brutal. The one about him not playing tennis with her is the one that got me:

"I can't get my head round how you've been playing tennis. If it was just sex, I wouldn't be jealous. You won't play with me, and who's Madeline?”

Whilst not in the same awkwardness levels as Fleetwood Mac, Spiritualized’s Jason Pierce still had to create music when his keyboard player ex Kate Radley stayed in the band but became romantically attached to Richard Ashcroft.

Ouch. However, out of tragedy comes triumph, and the resulting Ladies and Gentleman record is perhaps one of the most ambitious and stunningly realised breakup albums of them all. The references are vague until the central song Broken Heart, a symphonic space odyssey of a song, where poor Jason can’t hold himself together any longer:

“Though I have a broken heart, I'm too busy to be heartbroken, There's a lot of things that need to be done, Lord, I have a broken heart. And I'm wasted all the time, I've gotta drink you right off of my mind, I've been told that this will heal, given time, Lord, I have a broken heart. And I'm crying all the time, I have to keep it covered up with a smile, And I'll keep on moving on for a while, Lord, I have a broken heart”.

It’s easy to read into things and attach more drama and alarm with the benefit of hindsight. Amy Winehouse’s tune Rehab sounds a whole lot less defiant in light of what finally killed her, and the same might apply to Back to Black as a whole. 

It’s most definitely a breakup album, with the lyrics to the title song leaving little in doubt, but does that mean it’s autobiographical? We always seem to conflate the singer with the song, but I think it's quite well established that Amy was indeed singing her life on this record. It's a sad story for sure, but that rebellious streak throughout gives hope for the brokenhearted.

Fall in love, get jilted, retreat to a log cabin in the woods and do nothing but write aching love songs. It’s a solid plan, if Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago is anything to go by.

As the story goes, it was actually illness that drove him from civilization into the wilderness, where he hunted for his own food and wrote lyric-less melodies to newly forged songs. I’d say the jury is somewhat out on how true that idyllic backstory is, but what’s not in doubt is his collection of burnished, heartstring-tugging songs, full of wistfulness and sadness and elegy. It’s not one for a Friday night sesh, but it’s definitely good to put on once you’re back home.

Would the ever-elliptical Bob Dylan ever deign to write something as straightforward as a breakup album? Yes, as it happens, and to be honest, much of his work falls into this style when looked at under a certain lens. For all of his artfulness and wry distancing, he’s a writer who is concerned about the interior lives of real people, so the subject of breakups would obviously interest him.

Blood on the Tracks is one of those seminal Dylan records anyway. It’s one of about four that are the most-quoted in blogs like this, and for good reason. His marriage was on the rocks, and the 17 tracks on this album (is that what the album’s title refers to? Not train tracks?) were apparently threaded with a special lyrical code he devised after spending a summer learning to paint. Dylan himself says that he doesn’t write autobiographical songs (he would say that) but certain songs like A Simple Twist of Fate have even been acknowledged by him to be self-referencing. Not an easy listen. But a lasting one.

How do you feel now? Did you try out any of this music? You may not feel better about your love woes, but there was maybe some inner-shift provided by the music here that has given you something. Maybe it’s just some great new music to go back to again and again, and if that’s all this blog has achieved then I’d call it a success. 

Maybe your love life is fine, and you just like sad songs. Who doesn’t? They remind us how lucky we are, and add some emotional colour to our days. Whatever the case, may this music speak to you, in whichever way you find it to!