10 Best Rock And Roll Breakup Albums

Rock and roll has gone through its fair share of love songs in its time. Ever since acts like the Beatles were talking about how all we needed was love, there have been countless artists willing to stick their neck on the line for the people they care about. Life can play tricks on you though, and even some of the biggest acts in the world aren’t safe from emotional trauma every once in a while.

To be fair, not all of these are breakup albums in the truest form. As much as it would be easy to fill a list like this up with songs about how your ex is an awful person, a lot of these have to deal with the loss of someone else in the picture, whether that be the family members that you’ve had to leave behind along the way or moving on without one of your fellow band members.

In this case though, the band doesn’t really lean into their anger all that often. Rather than just talk about the emotional slog that they went through, a lot of these songs turn inward to see what they could have done better, and whether they can even find that kind of happiness ever again. Some of these might be a bit less rocking than before, but you get to see a lot more about the person when you hear songs like this.

For people who are coming here for nothing but breakup ballads, not every breakup record really works that way. Throughout every one of these records, you can always feel a pretty clear split in the music, as you hear the artists at their emotional wit's end as they come to terms with losing some of the most important people in their lives. It could be your love interest, but it could also be the bandmates that you've struggled with as well.

Before even going into cut Brand New Eyes, Paramore were already fairly burnt by the last few years, tired of the touring life that came after Riot! and getting more than a little bit jealous that Hayley Williams was being treated as the main person in the group instead of it being a band effort. There are some love songs on here to be sure, but the core message behind this record is tension within the band, as a few of these songs mirror the kind of turmoil that they were going through at the time.

Even when they were able to lash out at each other on songs like Ignorance and Playing God, the next cycle for the album wasn't necessarily going to be happy either, with both the Farro brothers leaving the group on very bad terms and relegating the band to a trio for their next self titled album. Breakups are always a delicate subject, but there are only a handful of albums where you can feel that separation happening in real time.