Why we love breakup songs like 'End Of The Road' [November 1, 1992]
Plus: The Shamen, Erasure, Shakespears Sister, and Arrested Development
Greetings, Time Travellers! š Welcome back to the week of November 1, 1992.
š° In the news this week, Bill Clinton is the new President of the United States! Ross Perot gets almost 20% of the vote, the highest of any independent ever.
š½ļø Neil Jordanās thriller The Crying Game causes a stir at cinemas.
šŗ On TV, BBC gets in hot water after their mockumentary Ghostwatch upsets everyone in Britain and gives some kids PTSD.
š¶ And there is a new Number One song in the UK! āSleeping Satelliteā gives way toā¦
This weekās Number One: āEnd Of The Roadā ā Boyz II Men
Correct me if Iām wrong, but I donāt think there have been many chart hits about physical pain. Nobodyās ever written a banger about standing on an upturned plug, or getting hot chip fat in your eye, or having a Thereās Something About Mary-style mishap with your zip.
And yet, emotional pain is a common subject for pop songs. At the time of writing, the entire Billboard Top 10 is dominated by the queen of breakup ballads, Taylor Swift. Back in 1992, the yearās ten best-selling singles included weepies such as:
āStayā by Shakespears Sister (āIf you try to go alone/Don't think I'll understandā)
āPlease Donāt Goā by K.W.S (āIām gonna miss your love/The minute you walk out the doorā)
āS.O.S.ā covered by Erasure (āWhat happened to our love? It used to be so goodā)
āI Will Always Love Youā by Whitney Houston (āGoodbye/Please donāt cry/We both know Iām not what you needā)
That list also includes āEnd Of The Roadā by Boyz II Men, a song where one of the Boyz announces that he would rather die than go through the pain of a breakup.
Personally, I agree with him. Stepping on an upturned plug is nothing compared to a breakup, which is always horrible, always, no matter the circumstances and no matter who is doing the dumping.
The question is: if breakups are so rotten, then why do we love songs about them?
I can't sleep at night without holding you tight
We love breakup songs (and other sad love songs) because they speak to the trauma of our own romantic failures.
Or, at least, thatās the received wisdom on the subject. Various psychologists and therapists have written things like this:
ā¦breakup songs can provide a kind of reverse empathy as you feel for another person going through what you are experiencing. This feeling can help you recognize your own feelings and also distract you from your own predicament.
Or, perhaps a sad love song can help us through the healing process, as argued by one of NPRās music guys:
In a breakup's aftermath, by the time you're ready to expose your ravaged heart to an aching ballad, you're not heartbroken so much as pre-healingā¦it's your heart's way of purging emotional toxins. It hurts, but it's helpful.
But do these theories really explain the appeal of sad love songs?
Hereās the thing: everyone loves breakup songs, even kids and folks whoāve never experienced a major heartbreak. People who married their childhood sweetheart and lived happily ever after can still grok the sentiment of āEnd Of The Roadā. It speaks to something innate in us.
So if these songs arenāt a form of therapy, then what are they?
Love me again like you loved me before
Earlier, I said that breakups hurt no matter who is doing the dumping.
Thatās not true. Thatās something you say to make yourself feel better after youāve dumped someone. Being dumped is always awful, no matter how it happens. Even if you wanted out of the relationship, itās still a rejection. It still hurts. It still feels like an icicle through the heart.
And this isnāt a metaphor! Social rejection can feel exactly like physical pain. Researchers demonstrated this by gathering a group of recently dumped people, sticking them in an MRI, and showing them images of their exes.
We further demonstrate ⦠physical pain by comparing activated locations in our study with a database of over 500 published studies. Activation in these regions was highly diagnostic of physical pain, with positive predictive values up to 88%. These results give new meaning to the idea that rejection āhurts.ā They demonstrate that rejection and physical pain are similar not only in that they are both distressingāthey share a common somatosensory representation as well.
Put simply: being dumped hurts in exactly the same way as stepping on a plug.
And nobody likes being hurt.
I'm just in so much pain baby
Yesterday was Halloween, the day when people dress up as their greatest fears (or a sexy version of their greatest fears.)
Halloween also means horror movies. Horror is a genre that seeks to exploit a specific part of your brain: the fight-or-flight response, which exists so that we can respond quickly to sudden threats.
Tickling your fight-or-flight can be fun, if itās done right. A good jumpscare gives you a sudden jolt of adrenaline, followed by the relaxing sense of safety when you realise youāre not in danger. According to one horror expert:
Because horror movies do such a good job at simulating threatening situations, this means our emotional responses to them are similar to those we'd experience if we encountered a real-life threat. As a result, horror movies are a risk-free way to vicariously experience threats and rehearse one's responses to those threats.
Tragic love stories do something similar. Melodrama gives you a taste of loss, rejection, grief and other painful emotionsānot enough to actually hurt you, but enough to allow you to roleplay heartbreak and think about how you would respond.
In other words: Boyz II Men allow you to safely microdose trauma.
And hey, that can be healthy! Weāve always needed art to help us connect with these big, scary emotions. Tragic romance stories are thousands of years old, going back to Greek bards telling the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, and they themselves were probably just repeating a song that was handed down to them.
We all carry this huge ocean of feelings inside us. Sad love songs allow us to stand on the shore without worrying that we might drown.
Got a favourite breakup song? Or can you not stand them? Let me know in the comments!
And if you liked this, please share it!
Elsewhere in the charts
Number 6 (New Entry): āBoss Drumā ā The Shamen
So, The Shamen deleted āEbeneezer Goodeā because it was hanging around the charts for too long and they wanted to clear a path for the next single, which is this: the title track from their album Boss Drum.
Doubtful. I think they deleted āEbeneezerā because the controversy got too much, plus they were worried about being seen as novelty song merchants. āBoss Drumā in fairness is a very sophisticated track with some nicely layered rhythms. A good showcase for a great band.
Number 10 (New Entry): āWho Needs Love Like Thatā ā Erasure
Fun video, and I absolutely love Andyās giant cowboy hat. It looks an even bigger version of Kurt Russellās enormous hat in The Thing.
Number 22 (New Entry): āToo Much Too Youngā ā Little Angels
You might expect this to sound like āToo Much Too Youngā by The Specials. Youād be wrong.
It sounds like āFootlooseā.
Number 23 (New Entry): āHello (Turn Your Radio On)ā ā Shakespears Sister
This one sounds like āSatellite of Loveā crossed with āLife On Marsā, and thatās absolutely fine. It sounds great, and Marcella gets a guitar solo.
Number 35 (New Entry): āPoingā ā Rotterdam Termination Source
This newsletter has been very harsh on novelty rave songs recently, especially those that use stupid samples.
In āPoingā, we have perhaps the stupidest sample in the world: a single āboingā sound that is either from an 8-bit video game, or created by twanging one of these guys over and over:
And you know what? Itās absolutely brilliant. Just an insane, infectious gabba track that knows its job, which is to drive ravers completely mental. A work of demented genius.
Album of the Week
3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life of⦠ā Arrested Development
Hard to believe that there was a moment when Arrested Development felt like the future of hip-hop.
They were socially conscious act like Public Enemy and A Tribe Called Quest, but they had this clean, radio-friendly sound that pre-empted The Fugees and, sadly, Black Eyed Peas.
This approach led to three absolutely monster hits, starting with āPeople Everydayā. The radio version of this banger (which borrows a chorus from Sly & The Family Stone) is very poppy and dancey, but the album version is a lot more stripped back:
They also produced āMr Wendallā, a slightly cringe song about homelessness, and āTenesseeā, an outstanding track about Southern racism that serves as the last word in that Neil Young/Lynyrd Skynyrd beef:
And the deep cuts on 3 Years⦠live up to the singles. āFishing 4 Religionā is a very funky atheism screed; āGive A Man A Fishā celebrates education; āChildren Play With Earthā calls for a return to nature. All of these tracks are smart, snappy, and full of hooks.
So, what happened to Arrested Development?
The follow-up album, Zingalamaduni, which landed with a loud plop in 1994. By then, the rap scene had been completely upended by G-funk and the scorched earth effect of albums like The Chronic and Doggystyle, while Tupac and Biggie were shocking people with their raw, lyrical honesty. Nobody wanted to listen to didactic bands like Arrested Development (or The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy) deliver lectures on homelessness.
3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life of⦠seemed like the template for a new era, but it turned out to be an elegy for something that was drawing to a close. The good news is that people went on to make tons of smart, socially conscious rap, and they still do today (check out Open Mike Eagle). Arrested Development blazed a trail for such acts, by showing that you could be meaningful and commercially successful.
People also kept making hip-hop thatās radio-friendly and easy to dance to. Have you ever heard of these guys called Black Eyed Peas?
Where would you rate Arrested Development in the pantheon of 90s hip hop? Let me know in the comments.
And if you enjoyed this, please share it!
Oh man! I'd completely forgotten about "Who Needs Love Like That?"! That'll be stuck in my head all morning, I' m sure. :)
A think I love about your newsletter is I get introduced to a lot of '90s bands that didn't make it over to the States. I tend to love more UK/EU britpop/indie/madchester/etc sounds so getting introduced to new to me bands makes my heart happy.