Great music not only offers sympathy in our most vulnerable moments, but can also articulate our deepest feelings better than we would every be able to ourselves. For the heartbroken Valentine's Day reader, The Daily Cardinal has compiled a list of indispensible breakup albums.
(Trauma/Interscope)
Ben Folds Five's second release is, with the exception of a few more upbeat numbers, the mouthpiece for frontman Ben Folds' reflections on the end of his marriage and relationships in general. Conceived as a \postcard from home,"" the album adeptly explores various facets of the American breakup.
Folds describes ""Fair"" as a ""dig-me-and-all-my-pain kind of song,"" while the jaunty ""Song for the Dumped"" is a cathartic release for post-break-up hostility (""So you wanted to take a break?/ Slow it down some and have some space?/ Well, fuck you too! Give me my money back/ Give me my money back/ Give me my money back, you bitch""). The standout, however, is the powerful ""Missing the War,"" its protagonist telling himself ""It's really no big deal/ It happens all the time,"" in vain before submitting to the chorus' supremely haunting and desolate harmonies.
(Geffen)
One doesn't exactly need to look deep into Pinkerton to see Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo's sexual vexations. With songs like ""Tired of Sex,"" ""Why Bother?"" and ""Pink Triangle,"" Cuomo covers all of the frustrations that any guy who couldn't get any endures. From frequent masturbation to obsessions with Japanese schoolgirls to hitting on lesbians, Pinkerton served as Cuomo's canvas of sexual futility following the break-up with his girlfriend of two and a half years.
Based off ""Madame Butterfly,"" the Puccini Opera, Pinkerton is Cuomo's allusion to his own shortcomings, playing himself to be the unfaithful naval officer from the opera. Making references to Puccini, from Cio-Cio San in ""El Scorcho,"" to the final acoustic ballad, ""Butterfly,"" Cuomo's supposedly immature lyrics are actually his intelligent lamentations. So if you just broke up with a special someone, and you have no one to hold onto tonight, perhaps Weezer is in order.
(Columbia)
Transcendent, ethereal and acoustic, Blood on the Tracks explores the murkiest details and clearest incarnations of unraveled affection. When Bob Dylan painted this masterpiece, it was tangled up with blue hues and the sparks tingling in his bones.
After Dylan split with the sad-eyed lady of the lowlands, Sara Lowndes, he produced the astounding admission forged from toil and blood. His voice wavers, mixing grievous vulnerability with resolute strength.
""Tangled Up in Blue"" and ""Shelter from the Storm"" may have passed into immortality, but it is the songs on the margins that speak most clearly. ""You're a Big Girl Now"" has Dylan singing, ""I'm back in the rain/ And you are on dry land."" The final track, ""Buckets of Rain"" offers, ""Life is sad/ Life is a bust/ All you can do, is do what you must.""
Blood on the Tracks combines sorrow and hope, distilling loss alongside resilience. Whether he employs Biblical allusions, Rimbaud references or a Colt revolver, Dylan explicitly relates all those scenes to his affair. It is tragically epic on the most human level.
(Columbia)
Rather than trying to recapture the success of ""Born in the U.S.A.,"" the Boss' follow-up album was a collection of ballads that would become his most underrated record. What makes Tunnel of Love a great album is how it weaves a narrative of the entire process of a relationship, not just the breakup. ""Brilliant Disguise"" and ""Two Faces,"" both question whether two people can fully understand each other, let alone live happily ever after.
What separates Tunnel of Love as an essential album for broken hearts is how Springsteen is introspective about relationships and does not put all the blame on the other. ""Tunnel of Love"" is the album for those who know that breakups aren't always the fault of just one partner, and that breakup songs don't have to be saccharine to be effective as a coping tool.
(Drive-Thru)
""And all I want is not to need you now ... It's not just the finish that's peeling/ And it's not alone fleeing these walls."" Oh the heartache, the sadness that is breaking up.??And who better to share your sorrows with than Chris Carraba, the lead singer of Dashboard Confessional and a demi-god to weepy teenagers everywhere.
His debut album, Swiss Army Romance, was a solo effort and an introspective, diary-like look into his excessively emotional life.??Most of the songs on this album are an attempt to articulate the difficulties of being in college while trying to maintain a long-distance relationship.??They range from thankful to angry and, of course, to sad, like the above lyrics from ""Turpentine Chaser.""
(Maverick/Reprise)
Alanis Morissette is not afraid to take the blame-the-guy approach. Every time I listen to Jagged Little Pill I am so happy I am not the guy that pissed her off.??Morissette has an agenda of rage, and she shares it with anyone willing to listen.??Aside from the obvious ""You Oughta Know,"" the album is made up of songs giving the lyrical middle finger to any man who has ever crossed a woman who didn't deserve it. For as angry as Morissette is, her songs give show a sense of empowerment and a contentedness with who she is that come with breaking up.??
""All I Really Want,"" ""Hand In My Pocket,"" ""You Learn"" and ""Ironic"" all show the enlightenment that she has reached.??If you aren't looking for inspiration, there are plenty of mad-as-hell songs on Jagged Little Pill, as well.??""You Oughta Know,"" ""Right Through You,"" ""Not the Doctor"" and ""Wake Up"" are full of hate and contempt for whoever the unlucky guys are in her life.
(Polydor)
The title track has become such a standard that people forget what a great album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs by Derek and the Dominoes is. Fuelled by Eric Clapton's love for George Harrison's wife, the album is an epic tribute to heartbreak.
""Layla"" is possibly the most intensely passionate song in rock history. Their cover of ""Little Wing"" is not only a record worthy of invoking Jimi Hendrix's memory, but takes the song in a whole new direction, using the song not only as a vehicle for Clapton's heartbroken guitar, but as an unmatched expression of longing.
""Bellbottom Blues,"" one of Clapton's greatest compositions, fits alongside ""Little Wing,"" with its emotional honesty and guitar work that's so intensely beautiful, it simultaneously borders on being sexual and spiritual. After the cathartic climax of ""Layla,"" the album ends with band member Bobby Whitlock's gorgeous acoustic ""Thorn Tree in the Garden.""
Yet the heartbreak of the album transcends the mesmerizing sounds we hear. Before the album became a hit, Clapton was faced with debilitating heroin addiction and Duane Allman died in a motorcycle crash. Now when we hear Allman's weeping slide guitar pair with Clapton's near-orgasmic blues-rock soloing, we hear a eulogy to what could have been. All that's left is a world-class album for a broken heart.
(Trauma/Interscope)
From the seemingly endless minor chords to the emotional, heart-wrenching lyrics, No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom epitomizes the classic breakup situation. Each song has its unique way of portraying the tragic end of Gwen Stefani and Tony Kanal's seven-year relationship.
Originally, ""Don't Speak"" celebrated the blissful relationship between Gwen and Tony, but before the song was recorded the two separated. Immediately the lyrics became pathetic as Tom Dumont's chords quickly changed from major to minor. Gwen Stefani pours her soul into her song as she cries, ""Don't tell me 'cause it hurts.""
Gwen sings with passion in her voice and the lyrics cry out the pain she felt; this pain represents what most people feel at the end of a relationship.
A few songs offer a glimmer of hope such as, ""The Climb,"" ""Different People,"" ""World Go Round"" and ""You Can Do It."" Besides, in the spirit of Valentine's Day, remember the old boyfriends or girlfriends with the passion behind Tragic Kingdom, but move on and start feeling ""Hella Good.""
(Geffen)
The most recent addition to the classic breakup album canon, Sea Change finds Beck at his most unguarded, and his most wounded. His previous dalliance in acoustic melancholy, Mutations is admittedly bleak, but the roster of counterfeit moons and black balloons that populate the songs show Beck eyeing up depression but never confronting it straight on. This contrasts with the painfully straightforward lyrics penned for Sea Change, written shortly after his long-term relationship fell apart last year.
During this time, Beck was devastated enough to pack the album with lines like ""Press my face up to the window/ To see how warm it is inside/ See the things that I've been missing/ Missing all this time"" from ""Guess I'm Doing Fine."" He bypassed the surreal, connotative lyrics of his earlier efforts, instead preferring simple, declarative lyrics that are more piercingly emotional and personal.
Surprisingly enough, Sea Change is one of the least depressing breakup albums to listen to. With the help of producer Nigel Godrich and arranger David Campbell, Beck crafted the album with a sense of musical catharsis, working his way through his demons over the course of its 52 minutes. By the end of the album, the sea change is one toward renewed positivity, with the helpless state Beck inhabited when he wrote the songs as a mere pit-stop on the way to another woman, and another album.
