--:-- Noel King: It was already a big year for breakup records. Jason Isbell, Amanda Shires, Fleetwood Mac, R.I.P. so many, many times. But Silver Springs was born again again this year. And then last month, Lily Allen's West End Girl landed like a 10-ton bomb on top of her ex.
--:-- Noel King: We had an arrangement. Be discreet and don't be blatant. There had to be payment. It had to be with strangers. But you're not a stranger, Madeline.
--:-- Noel King: And we all had so many, many thoughts. I was scandalized by this album that Lily Allen put out. I checked out the album, and I do have something to say. My jaw is on the floor. Like, I would watch the album as a movie.
--:-- [Music transitions]
--:-- Noel King: Breakup albums have been around for half a century, but for better or worse, they are evolving in a parasocial age. That's coming up on Today Explained. Every story you love, every invention that moves you, every idea you wished was yours, all began as nothing. Just a blank page with a blinking cursor, asking a simple question. What do you see? Great ideas start on Mac. Find out more on apple.com slash mac.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: Tell us, who is Lily Allen and what did she do? That is a very interesting and complicated question.
--:-- Noel King: Coleman Spilde, senior culture writer, Salon.com.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: Lily Allen is a British musician and a tabloid fixture. And now she is back with her new album, West End Girl, which is taking her sort of confessional songwriting to the next level by revealing every sordid detail about the dissolution of her marriage to David Harbour, the actor from Stranger Things and Marvel fame.
--:-- Noel King: West End Girl tells quite a tale. What is the tale that it is telling?
--:-- Coleman Spilde: So this is an album about a woman who is really excited to be in this marriage. She's been swept off her feet by this handsome man. and she's moving to New York to start her new life with him.
--:-- Noel King: We hear that in the opening title track of the album West End Girl, which is sort of a sing-songy introduction to the album.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: We've moved to New York. We found a nice little rental near a sweet little school. Now I'm looking at houses with four or five floors and you found us a brownstone said you want it.
--:-- Noel King: At the end of this opening track, we hear the recording of a one-sided FaceTime conversation between the two of them.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: Hi. Where Lily is sort of talking to the person on the other end of the phone who seems to be asking for maybe it's an open marriage, maybe he's confessing infidelity, maybe he's asking for a certain kind of marriage arrangement.
--:-- Noel King: I mean, it doesn't make me feel great.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: Then she is sort of thrust into this anxiety spiral, which a lot of listeners can probably relate to if they've ever been in any kind of a torrid relationship.
--:-- Noel King: You have the follow-up track, the second track on the album, Ruminating.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: This frenetic drum and bass song. She's remembering this line that he told her over the phone.
--:-- Noel King: The end of the song, she just repeats, what a fucking line, over and over and over again.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: And then through the rest of the first half of the album, she's throwing sort of back-to-back songs like Tennis and Madeline, which Tennis is all about coming home to find that her partner may have been texting another woman.
--:-- Noel King: She's asking over and over, who is Madeline? And who the fuck is Madeline? Who the fuck is Madeline?
--:-- Coleman Spilde: The very next song is answering that question.
--:-- Noel King: So it's sort of like a call and response that really invites the listener to have a lot of fun with it.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: What are we supposed to be feeling by the time we finish? It sort of flips a little bit to go a bit more introspective, thinking about, you know, what can I do to be part of this relationship as he wants it to be? What can I do to make him happy? what sacrifices can I make?
--:-- Noel King: So then you have songs like Non-Monogamummy, where Lily is kind of wrestling with her traditional ideas of motherhood, and then being a mother who is also non-monogamous, which doesn't quite fit for her.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: And then you have the sort of coda of the album, where she is finding some contentment with it, and just accepting that this is someone who's never going to change.
--:-- Noel King: And this is someone who didn't have her best priority in mind and someone who prioritized themselves over the love of their marriage.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: All right, so there are two types of reactions to this album. One of them is the offline reaction that is your sister and your sister-in-law texting you, you have to listen to this album.
--:-- Noel King: And then there is what happened on Al Gore's internet.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: What was the reaction online?
--:-- Noel King: There was a couple, there were a couple different reactions online. If you're a man who's ever been confused about what kind of information your girlfriend's asking for when you tell her you know somebody broke up, this, this is what she wants.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: And at 3.54 on June the 11th, I sported a cube on your antidepressants, knew she must be a People were starting to look at it as a morality tale.
--:-- Noel King: So you had this initial reaction that was listening to the album and vilifying David Harbour and all of this.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: The girl was a shell of herself. She was like the ghost of Lily Allen in that relationship.
--:-- Noel King: People like this should not marry another famous person. You want some non-famous person who's going to worship the ground that you walk on and never be more successful than you.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: Calm down. You are in the strangers.
--:-- Noel King: You had people who were calling for boycotts of the last season of Stranger Things people who said that he should never be working in a Marvel movie again and people who were really equating you know personal romantic problems with sort of illegal sins and making infidelity into something that should be punishable by a law or by firing, which is just not how we work as a society.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: People were digging up things about their relationship. People were really interested in finding out more because it has that sort of car crash element to the album people were looking at their shared architectural digest home tour of their brooklyn brownstone people were analyzing the way that video started with david harbour opening the door and kind of making a joke about the camera person being the other woman last time i was single and i was living on the lower east i have a family now kids i mean this is so embarrassing
--:-- Noel King: You look good.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: And then you also had people really digging into the sort of like West End girl of it all and looking at how David Harper responded to Lily's part in her first play.
--:-- Noel King: And they also dug up an old Instagram story from Lily about flowers that he had sent her pre-opening night.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: He wrote on the note, These are bad luck flowers because if you get reviewed well in this play, you will get all kinds of awards and I will be miserable. Signed, Your Loving Husband.
--:-- Noel King: People were really able to take these things and feed into them because they were all public as it was.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: And so it helps proliferate that narrative that Lily was already spinning.
--:-- Noel King: Then there was another layer to that, which I find almost even more fascinating, was that people, as the album became more popular over its release weekend, were looking at it and then suddenly digging up things about not just David and Lily's marriage, but Lily Allen herself.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: They dug up an old Twitter row that she had with Azealia Banks.
--:-- Noel King: What Allen tweeted at her neck was a photo of her husband's at the time in blackface.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: When I saw that in my comments, that's unforgivable.
--:-- Noel King: So Lily Allen is not a good person.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: They dug up confessions from Lily Allen saying that she, saying that much of her last record, No Shame, was about her infidelity with her husband.
--:-- Noel King: So it's kind of this idea that people are running to make the artist behind things or to tear them down as much as possible.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: Do people like this album because it's a good album? Do people like it because people love a train wreck? Or do people like it because in 2025, five, it is saying something much deeper than what's on the surface.
--:-- Noel King: As a critic, I would have to say it's a little bit of everything.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: It's funny because it's an interesting album. You know, the music itself may not be the most unconventional or the most left field in its production, but it is filled with earwormy hooks and interesting lyrics and fun phrases that kind of keep you coming back to it and really drill into your head, which is really part of the genius of making a breakup album like this, is you want to keep returning to it no matter how sad it is.
--:-- Noel King: And also, I think people really do love the train wreck of it because there is a sort of rubbernecking sensationalism of people love to look at a car crash.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: I think that people are really eager to tear people down in the public sphere when they seem to have any wrongdoing, that they've done.
--:-- Noel King: And some people also like to dig in and uncover stuff and proliferate it online and on social media and add to the narrative themselves.
--:-- Coleman Spilde: So it all becomes kind of a bit of a game, but it all also works in Lily Allen's favor too.
--:-- Noel King: Coming up, 50 years of breakup albums and the culture that created them
--:-- Noel King: Every story you love, every invention that moves you, every idea you wished was yours, all began as nothing. Just a blank page with a blinking cursor. Asking a simple question. What do you see? Great ideas start on Mac. Find out more on apple.com slash mac.
--:-- Upwork Business Plus: You can source and vet candidates for skill and reliability. They can also send you a curated shortlist of proven expert talent so that you can delegate with confidence.
--:-- Noel King: Don't spin your wheels. Right now, when you spend $1,000 on Upwork Business Plus, you'll get $500 in credit. Go to Upwork.com slash save now. You can claim this offer before December 31, 2025.
--:-- Noel King: And again, that's Upwork.com slash S-A-V-E. Scale smarter with top talent and $500 in credit. terms and conditions to apply.
--:-- Noel King: They say the best revenge is living well, but if you're a pop star going through a breakup, that's absolutely false. The best revenge is releasing a searing scorched earth revenge banger that calls out your ex and ideally rides your vengeance to the top of the Billboard charts.
--:-- [Music transitions]
--:-- Noel King: That's exactly what two stars Tate McRae and Lily Allen have done in the wake of their high-profile breakups.
--:-- Noel King: I'm musicologist Nate Sloan, and this week on Switched on Pop, we break down the art of the revenge banger. Using Tate McRae's Tip for Tat and Lily Allen's West End Girl to ask, what makes a great revenge song and why can we stop listening Tune in to Switched on Pop anywhere you get podcasts
--:-- David Metzer: My name is David Metzer. I'm a music historian. I teach at the University of British Columbia, and I'm a scholar of love songs, including breakup songs and breakup albums.
--:-- Noel King: So I actually wrote a book on ballads, which are essentially love songs.
--:-- David Metzer: And with love songs, you've got to deal with the falling in love and having love fall apart around you.
--:-- Noel King: Tell me how you would describe the current moment when it comes to breakup albums.
--:-- David Metzer: I think really a lot of it has to do with our social media age in which we live in, in which any personal news becomes a source of fascination.
--:-- Noel King: And you have to weigh in it. You have to disclose aspects of it.
--:-- David Metzer: So that's what I think a lot of artists are using breakup albums in part for. It's a way of getting their side of the story out there and making a statement.
--:-- Noel King: And it's obviously much richer than a tweet or an Instagram post or something like that.
--:-- David Metzer: The breakup album is nothing new. Where does it begin?
--:-- Noel King: The earliest one I've found for breakup albums is a Nat King Cole album, I Don't Want to Be Hurt Anymore, from 1964.
--:-- David Metzer: I don't want to be hurt. anymore And he remains hurt throughout the whole album to be honest.
--:-- Noel King: How can I face the dark Didn't you even laugh and leave me crying there
--:-- David Metzer: It doesn't let up, let's just put it that way.
--:-- Noel King: And then it's really in the 1970s that the breakup album takes off.
--:-- David Metzer: Just before our love got lost you said I am as constant as a northern star.
--:-- Noel King: A classic example is Joni Mitchell's Blue from 1971, in which she ruminates on her relationship with Graham Nash, which had just ended, her relationship with James Taylor, even looks back to her first marriage there.
--:-- David Metzer: I could drink a case of you Just pretend I never have fun
--:-- Noel King: But then the breakup album takes all these strange directions in the 1970s.
--:-- David Metzer: One is in country music. You have Willie Nelson putting an album called Phases and Stages, which is an album which on side A presents the woman's side of the breakup.
--:-- Noel King: And before you wake up, I'll be gone.
--:-- David Metzer: On side B, the man's side of the breakup.
--:-- Noel King: Well, it's a bloody merry morning, baby. Left me without warning sometime in the night.
--:-- David Metzer: And then... I guess I'll have to say this album is dedicated to you
--:-- Noel King: This has to be the strangest breakup album of all time.
--:-- David Metzer: Marvin Gaye put an album called Hear My Dear. This album is just really about his divorce and just like how painful that divorce has been.
--:-- Noel King: And the album is dedicated to her.
--:-- David Metzer: I don't think I'll have many regrets, baby
--:-- Noel King: And it's a double album. And it goes the strangest places.
--:-- David Metzer: Like there's one kind of Star Wars fantasy about them hooking up in three centuries from now in outer space.
--:-- Noel King: Like years ahead, you and me gonna be getting down on a space bed.
--:-- David Metzer: And then we just hit this really rich period in the 2020s where we have had albums from Beyoncé.
--:-- Noel King: Becky with the good hair Livi Rodrigo You said forever, now I drive alone past your street
--:-- David Metzer: Casey Musgraves I hate you and I love you Adele Go easy, help me baby
--:-- Noel King: And what's very interesting about this period with albums is that we have both sides of the breakup giving us albums.
--:-- David Metzer: So there's the Jason Isbell album that came out recently.
--:-- Noel King: I'm sorry the love song's all mean
--:-- David Metzer: Then it was responded to by his ex, Amanda Shires.
--:-- Noel King: I remember cleaning up after you
--:-- David Metzer: And too many nights alone
--:-- Noel King: Where we have the two sides.
--:-- Noel King: Also, that happened with Kacey Musgraves' Star Crossed, which is about her breakup with Rustin Kelly.
--:-- David Metzer: Two lovers ripped right at the seams
--:-- Noel King: Who released his own breakup album after that.
--:-- David Metzer: My marriage ended and I moved up north
--:-- Noel King: So it's fast and furious with giving your side of the story these days.
--:-- Noel King: We started the show talking about Lily Allen, and there is a sense in that album, a very vivid sense, that Lily Allen wants to win the breakup.
--:-- David Metzer: She's like, I'm going to tell you every damn thing this man did to me. You know who he is. We do.
--:-- Noel King: Is releasing a breakup album into the wild, into people's ears, is it about winning the breakup?
--:-- David Metzer: Well, obviously, there are stakes in these breakups.
--:-- Noel King: That's why we have the other partners putting out albums.
--:-- David Metzer: People view it as a war.
--:-- Noel King: And even Marvin Gaye back in Hear My Dear, for him, it's definitely, you know, getting even in all sorts of ways.
--:-- David Metzer: With the Lily Allen album, it definitely is.
--:-- Noel King: I mean, one of the last lines in it is, it's not me, it's you.
--:-- Noel King: Everyone said, oh, this album came out right as David Harbour was doing press for Stranger Things, and it was like a way of sticking it to him.
--:-- David Metzer: Has the way in which artists released these albums changed at all in the last, like, 50 or so years?
--:-- Noel King: Yeah, we never saw anything like this before.
--:-- David Metzer: I think Nat King Cole was happy and loved. He just decided to put out a sad album.
--:-- Noel King: Jodi Mitchell, she's ever so kind to her exes in that album.
--:-- David Metzer: He put me at ease, and he loved me so, naughty made me weak in the knees.
--:-- Noel King: I suffer again from Marvin Gaye's two-album bitterness.
--:-- David Metzer: You can leave, but it's going to cost you.
--:-- Noel King: I haven't seen anything like this before, and I think it really is a reflection of the social media age, where maybe even tweets, whatever posts, you know, they don't have the ring that they once used to or the weight that they once used to
--:-- David Metzer: So you got to put out something bigger and the album is that something bigger
--:-- Noel King: What are kind of the necessary ingredients for a breakup album?
--:-- David Metzer: Yeah it has to be reflection to some degree
--:-- Noel King: It can't just be all this bitter spew of bitterness.
--:-- David Metzer: And you have to offer the listener something broader to think about than just like, that guy screwed me over. Let me tell you some details.
--:-- Noel King: You have to offer them something broader.
--:-- David Metzer: And again, not to treat Joni Mitchell as, not to put her on a pedestal, although she should be. But she had a line which I think summed it all up.
--:-- Noel King: She went to make it clear to listeners, it's not really about me. It's actually about you, the listener.
--:-- David Metzer: So I have this one quotation I'll just read, which I think is beautiful.
--:-- Noel King: The trick is if you listen to that music and you see me, you're not getting anything out of it.
--:-- David Metzer: If you listen to that music and you see yourself will probably make you cry and you'll learn something about yourself and now you're getting something out of it.
--:-- Noel King: Joni Baby. Joni Baby.
--:-- David Metzer: And it's so right. It's like, don't look for the details. You should have some beautiful things to reflect upon and really things that can open you up.
--:-- Noel King: And one of the ways that breakup albums in the 1970s differed from breakup albums today is the type of language that is used.
--:-- David Metzer: In the 1970s albums, it's all very much about suggestion.
--:-- Noel King: No lover is named or even really pointed to in very specific ways.
--:-- David Metzer: Rather, it's just really that the listener knows that there has been a breakup and that's enough.
--:-- Noel King: And so they have you think about this breakup in these broad universal terms and to open yourself up to these rich moments of emotional reflection.
--:-- Noel King: How important are the endings of the breakup albums? What do they need to do?
--:-- David Metzer: I think one of the fascinating things about breakup albums is what the last song is.
--:-- Noel King: Because where's this person going to be after pouring out their heart for like 45 minutes?
--:-- David Metzer: And where are we going to be as listeners after hearing all this?
--:-- Noel King: And usually it's three options with these.
--:-- David Metzer: The first is when I'm going to call Still Bitter. that you are still upset about this relationship, and you have nothing but bitterness to pour out.
--:-- Noel King: The second one is figuring it out. You're starting to put the pieces together, and you're starting to say, yeah, maybe I was part of the problem.
--:-- David Metzer: And the third option is moving on, where, yeah, you're going to start to take your first steps past this breakup.
--:-- Noel King: And moving on involves pulling yourself together.
--:-- David Metzer: Now you have a good idea of what happened, and you're ready for something new.
--:-- Noel King: Or, in some cases, falling in love again.
--:-- David Metzer: And everyone takes a different step.
--:-- Noel King: So with Lily Allen, it's a combination of still better and figuring it all out.
--:-- David Metzer: It is what it is. You're a mess. I'm a bitch.
--:-- Noel King: With the Nat King Cole album that I mentioned earlier, it's like I'm all cried out.
--:-- David Metzer: There isn't a tear left to cry
--:-- Noel King: But you know, I believe she's going to walk through the door once again
--:-- David Metzer: And when she does, I'm going to be ready to love her all again
--:-- Noel King: And I won't have to cry
--:-- David Metzer: And then the Jason Isbell album has this beautiful conclusion to it
--:-- Noel King: The final song, after going through all this self-examination
--:-- David Metzer: And a little condemnation of the partner ends with this beautiful song called Wind Behind the Rain.
--:-- Noel King: If you leave me now, I'll just come running after you.
--:-- David Metzer: I'll be the wind behind the rain.
--:-- Noel King: Which is a song he actually wrote for his brother's wedding.
--:-- David Metzer: It was to be the first dance song for his brother's wedding.
--:-- Noel King: It's all just about the beauty of commitment.
--:-- David Metzer: I'll always see you like you are right now.
--:-- Noel King: So to go through that psychological storm and end with something hopeful like that is truly beautiful.
--:-- Noel King: I love you like the morning loves the afternoon
--:-- David Metzer: But I really love the Kacey Musgraves album because it does get bitter at times, but then it has this beautiful close to it.
--:-- Noel King: It's actually a song she did not write.
--:-- David Metzer: It's called Gracias a la Vida.
--:-- Noel King: It was written by Vila Tapara, a Chilean singer in the 1960s.
--:-- David Metzer: And it's really just about all we should be grateful for in life.
--:-- Noel King: Gracias a la vida Life will present us with so many wonderful things.
--:-- David Metzer: The beauty of nature, friendship, and good lovers.
--:-- Noel King: These are all part of the beauty of life, and we should be just thankful for them, even when things go bad.
--:-- Noel King: I haven't heard that ending before in a breakup album, but I love it, because even during, like, breakups I've been in, I think about, like, I really do have a lot to be quite grateful for in life, and that will ground you emotionally and psychologically.
--:-- Noel King: I'll give KC Musgraves the award for the best conclusion to a breakup album.
--:-- David Metzer: David Metzer. He's a scholar of love songs. Nice work if you can get it. University of British Columbia.
--:-- Noel King: Peter Balanon-Rosen produced today's show.
--:-- Miranda Kennedy: edited by Miranda Kennedy,
--:-- Noel King: Laura Bullard checks the facts.
--:-- Noel King: And Patrick Boyd is our engineer.
--:-- Noel King: Our team in order of height.
--:-- Noel King: Avishai Artsy, Hadi Muagdi, Miles Bryan, Denise Guerra, Danielle Hewitt, Kelly Wessinger, Ariana Espuru, Adrian Lilly, Sean Ramosferm, Ested Herndon, Amina El-Sadi, and Jolie Myers.
--:-- Noel King: We use music by Breakmaster Cylinder.
--:-- Noel King: Today Explained is distributed by WNYC.
--:-- Noel King: The show is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
--:-- Noel King: Podcasts.voxmedia.com.
--:-- Noel King: Listen to this podcast and so many more ad-free.
--:-- Noel King: Go to vox.com slash members to sign up.
--:-- Noel King: There is a sale on now, y'all.
--:-- Noel King: I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
