Grooveshark

Breaking up with a longtime companion is an especially painful experience. It basically amounts to getting laid off from a company you helped build. Sure you might get the metaphorical severance pay of breakup sex, but it does little to numb the pain. While your friends will rally around you and support you in your time of need, you will be forced to seek solice in everyone’s favorite inanimate friend, your music(or a bottle of Jack Daniels). There is never a time where music sounds more poignant and essential than in the aftermath of a breakup. Your headphones will be your metaphorical couch with The Smiths assuming the role of your therapist team. Developing a dangerous, unhealthy relationship with your music collection is one of the few positives that stem from the dissolution of a relationship.

While music provides a nice outlet for the inevitable deluge of emotions, it can also become your deathknell. If you were generally regarded as a chipper, upbeat person during the relationship, listening to Chris Carraba’s crooning for 5 months straight could cause you to emerge from your self imposed exile wearing all black and espousing the “fire and glory” of Dashboard Confessional. Not even Chris Carraba wants to be that guy. There are several levels of breakup recovery, and you should have a soundtrack for every one of them. If this sounds like a pasttime reserved for only the most neurotic of depressives, then you obviously haven’t watched many Cameron Crowe movies.

The Hiroshima Phase
The first week after a breakup is a little like having an atomic bomb dropped right on your face. You can’t even fathom the aftermath as the shadow of your former happiness becomes metaphorically etched on your walls. This is the phase where you’ll listen to music more depressing than a Dustin Diamond comeback special. These will all be on the mixed cd you’ll laboriously compile over the next few months and ultimately never give it to your former amour. Songs that fit in this category:

*You’re a Big Girl Now-Bob Dylan(from the album Blood on the Tracks)
*Bad Liver and a Broken Heart-Tom Waits(from the album Small Change)
*Guess I’m Doing Fine-Beck(from the album Sea Change)
*It’s a Motherf****er-eels(from the album Live at Town Hall)
*Bell Bottom Blues-Derek and The Dominoes(from the album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs)
*Empty Handed Heart-Warren Zevon(from the album Bad Luck Streak at Dancing School)

The Anger Phase
This is when a breakup starts to become almost enjoyable. All of the things you found cute about your ex reveal themselves to be trite and boring. Her musings on Sylvia Plath that you once described as trenchant are now deemed pretentious and pompous. This is also the phase when you begin meticulously crafting one-liners that reduce the other person to a silvery puddle of metallic liquid not unlike Alex Mack. Any song you’ve ever heard that refers to a person disparingly immediately becomes the cornerstone of your collection. Songs that fit in this category:

*Song for The Dumped-Ben Folds Five(from the album Whatever and Ever Amen), Best One Liner: “Give me my money back, give me my money back you b**ch”.
*Burning Photographs-Ryan Adams(from the album Rock N Roll), Best One Liner: “I used to be sad now I’m just bored with you”.
*Woman Like a Man-Damien Rice(from the album B Sides)Best One Liner(that doesn’t include obscenity): “It really wasn’t worth the ride”.
*I’m Looking Through You-The Beatles(from the album Rubber Soul), Best One Liner: “Love has a nasty habit of dissapearing overnight”.
*World Class Fad-Paul Westerberg(from the album 14 Songs), Best One Liner: “You wax poetic about things pathetic as long as you look so cute”
*Somebody That I used to Know-Elliott Smith(from the album Figure 8), Best One Liner: “You’re just somebody that I used to know”.

After the anger phase comes the restrained sadness that comes with acceptance. Eventually you’ll find the opposite sex attractive again, but until then you’ll find comfort in your record collection and possibly a generous helping of the aformentioned Jack Daniels. I know I left out a ton of really vitriolic songs, and when I go home tonight I’ll want to add 6,000. What are some of your favorite uber-depressing or hysterically angry songs?

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