Skip to content
Next Episodes
Mon: 7:30pm
Tues: 7:30pm
Classic Episodes
Mon: 1:30pm
Tues: 1:30pm
Study reveals 10 most popular breakup songs from Lewis Capaldi to Billie Eilish Credits: Social Media
By Ellissa Bain

Study reveals 10 most popular breakup songs from Lewis Capaldi to Billie Eilish

By Ellissa Bain

When youre going through a breakup, whats the first thing to do? Put on a song about heartbreak and cry of course!

Slow ballads are great when you need to let the tears out, while fast-paced tracks let you shout it all out when you’re feeling angry about the relationship ending – and here are the most popular ones.

Sad and depressed woman sitting indoors on sofa, tearing photograph.
Mental health concept. Credit: Halfpoint Images (Getty Images)

A new study by Playlist Name AI analyzed over 130 breakup songs from 2019 to 2014 and added up their Spotify streams and YouTube Music plays to discover which are the most popular.�It found that Someone You Loved by Scottish singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi tops the list.

Released in 2018, the piano ballad is about feeling alone while mourning the loss of a former love interest. The chorus has the heartbreaking lyrics: “Now the day bleeds/ Into nightfall/ And you’re not here/ To get me through it all.”

“I let my guard down/ And then you pulled the rug/ I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved,” it continues.

Speaking to The Courier,�Capaldi said the song describes “that feeling when you start getting to know someone and things have been going really well but you’ve been reluctant to be as open as you like with stuff in the past”.

He added that “as soon as you let them in something goes wrong” – a feeling that lots of people will be able to relate to.

Its slow tempo makes it the perfect sad song to listen to after a breakup and it was the best-selling single of 2019 in the UK, with 3.535 billion streams on Spotify and 2.8 billion on YouTube Music.

Second place is a big pop track

Next on the list is Kill This Love by South Korean girl group BLACKPINK, a fast-paced electropop track which talk about a girl’s decision to end a toxic relationship.

Released in 2019, it has only had 842,000 streams on Spotify but a staggering 3.4 billion on YouTube Music and mixes Korean and English within the track.

“We must kill this love/ Yeah, it’s sad but true/ Gotta kill this love/ Before it kills you, too,” the angry lyrics shout.

After you’re done crying, it’s the perfect song to get that anger out, help you get over the breakup and take back your freedom.

A beautiful woman is having a self-date in a bubble bath, listening to music in headphones and drinking white wine
A beautiful woman is having a self-date in a bubble bath listening to music in headphones and drinking white wine. Quality time alone and SPA relaxation. Credit: Yana Iskayeva (Getty Images)
  1. Someone You Loved – Lewis Capaldi 
  2. Kill This Love – BLACKPINK�
  3. Dont Start Now – Dua Lipa
  4. Flowers – Miles Cyrus 
  5. when the partys over – Billie Eilish 
  6. drivers licence – Olivia Rodrigo 
  7. good 4 u – Olivia Rodrigo 
  8. Before You Go – Lewis Capaldi 
  9. Easy on Me – Adele 
  10. Heather – Conan Gray�

We asked artificial intelligence for 100 songs that everyone should know from different genres including rock and country, and here is what it said.