I spoke to a music psychologist about why breakup songs comfort us after a breakup
I was in a bar in Dalston, London, on a Thursday night when two girls from Sweden - they have a band called Mad Monday - played a song called Blackpool, inspired by one of the singer’s recent love story which didn’t work out. In that moment, it didn’t matter that I was happily single and fully convinced that my ex was just a douchebag. During that song, my feelings came back to the surface and in four minutes I realised I wasn’t over him. At all.
But that’s the power, and the success, of breakup songs: everyone can relate. While you wouldn’t expect goddesses like Rihanna and Beyoncé spending sleepless nights because of a man, trust me, even they have experienced heartbreak. When dealing with a broken heart, there’s nothing more reassuring than knowing someone else went through it before you. While a friend or family are not always there to pick up the pieces, music is. A research published by Scientific Reports shows that crying to gut-wrenching breakup songs produces a measurable sense of pleasure for the listener. It’s no surprise an artist’s most popular tunes came out from bad relationship experiences.
Dr Alexandra Lamont, senior lecturer in Psychology of Music at Keele University says: “Music conveys emotion through a range of mechanisms, but like any kind of art can tell powerful stories.”
She explains that writing songs to express negative emotions and heartbreak has long been tradition, from Dido's Lament to the haunting strains of Sinead O'Connor's Nothing Compares 2 U.
“Anger is another emotion that is ripe for musical expression, with a lot of hate-fuelled breakup songs which we wouldn't describe as beautiful,” Dr Lamont says. Just think of Romance is Dead by Parkway Drive. It makes cry your soul out but so your ears.
Why then do we feel comforted when listening to breakup songs when we are going through a breakup?
“We know music fulfils an important function of solace or consolation in general terms, and we also know that our own personally relevant favourite music makes us feel better,” Dr Lamont says. “In listening studies people typically experience some kind of emotion, and most emotions evoked by pop music are positive.”
A study conducted at Freie Universität Berlin found that people experience four different cognitive rewards of music-evoked sadness: the reward of imagination, empathy, emotion regulation and no “real-life” implications. We basically get pleasure from connecting with music on an imaginative level while we empathise with the musician and feel the negative emotions that are conveyed.
“As we cycle through the emotional states of denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and finally acceptance, there are songs out there that suit all of these grief states,” Dr Lamont says.
However, Dr Lamont warns, breakup songs are not for everybody. “Same people may feel more negative and nostalgic after listening to sad songs,” she says. “It is important to know yourself and go for the genre that cheers you up the most.”