When the nominations were announced Grammy 2024One thing was immediately clear: women outperformed men in the main categories.
The main artists (superstars like SZA, Taylor Swift And Olivia Rodrigo) reflect an incredible range of skills with acclaimed albums that explore every corner of the human experience.
One of these aspects: divorce
An influx of new releases Kelly Clarkson, Miley Cyrus and Kelsea Ballerini They reinvent the divorce album in all its complexity. While the music industry has long been obsessed with young people, there might be something to the fact that all of these musicians are women in their 30s and 40s and therefore have a kind of confidence and a wealth of emotional maturity.
In a culture where identification is commonplace, stories about relationships with weight and the wisdom of age are considered new. If all pop stars are teenagers, where does that leave the rest of us? Perhaps the depth of a breakup ballad is felt most clearly when a public breakup makes tabloid headlines, and there's so much more to lose.
Cyrus' malleable pop “Flowers,” one of AP's best songs of 2023, is a pep talk turned empowerment track: the sound of a woman relearning about herself after the end of a relationship. A decade ended in divorce. He has received five nominations, including Album of the Year for “Endless Summer Vacation.”
Then there's Clarkson's “Chemistry,” a blockbuster release she describes as a “relationship album” that's in the running for best pop vocal album.
And in the country world, which has a long tradition of women performing songs about divorce and domestic life, Ballerini's “Rolling Up the Welcome Mat” is nominated for best album in the genre.
These albums are very different but have a similar emotional core: they were written while dealing with crumbling marriages.
In 2020, Cyrus split from actor Liam Hemsworth and Kelly Clarkson ended her marriage to Brandon Blackstock. Two years later, Ballerini and her husband, Morgan Evans, divorced.
Musically, these endings opened up new realities. Clarkson pursued bold ballads that expanded her elastic vocal range, Ballerini experimented with pop productions, and Cyrus used her worn voice like a weapon. Their albums emerged from painful times in which each artist redefined themselves.
Ballerini is part of a long line of country women making music about divorce and heartbreak, with tones ranging from vengeful to celebratory. Marissa R. Moss, author of “Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be,” points to Loretta Lynn's breakthrough 1973 hit “Rated X” as a precedent for future musicians.
What is interesting now is the modern way in which divorce is articulated in these records.
Ballerini's album, particularly the song “Penthouse,” challenges stereotypical domestic roles and “demonstrates financial power,” Moss said.
“I bought the house with a fence, enough room for a few kids,” Ballerini sings. Later, her house becomes claustrophobic, an allegory for her marriage: “And I thought that would make everything better, and maybe I wouldn't feel like the walls were closing in forever.”
The album explores the idea that even as women gain financial autonomy and reshape traditional roles in marriage, they are still not necessarily able to find freedom within their boundaries.
“I don't think a divorce album without quotes is the first time I've felt like it's different being a woman in country music, that's for sure,” Ballerini told The Associated Press about gender expectations in this genre.
Men have also been writing about ending marriages for a long time, but in the current moment it is women who are taking the lead. Other artists writing about and around divorce include Adele, Kacey Musgraves and Carly Pearce, another 2024 Grammy nominee.
For her part, Ballerini understands why people deeply identify with the songs on her album that deal with divorce.
“For a long time it was taboo to talk about it, especially from a woman’s perspective,” she said. It's about “giving myself a voice again and validating my own feelings, my own life and my own journey and hoping that other women feel that too and feel validated.”
Divorce files are often expected to contain only sad songs. While Ballerini, Clarkson and Cyrus exorcise pain on their albums, they also express gratitude. These records are sad and encouraging, often both at the same time.
“People seem to feel that sad music expresses their own sadness, not the artist's sadness, but that you feel like the artist is trying to express your own sadness,” said Joshua Knobe, a professor and researcher at the Yale University. He led a team of scientists whose 2023 study found that listeners are drawn to melancholic music for similar reasons to sad conversations: because they're looking for connection.
Or, as Ballerini said, listeners want to feel validated.
“People like success. “You like to talk to people who are successful,” Knobe continued. “But that’s not what makes people feel a deep connection to another human being.”
If negative emotions are perceived as more complex than positive ones, this may create more opportunities to socialize. Divorce albums often reflect a spectrum of emotions, and songs by Cyrus, Ballerini and Clarkson allow the listener to experience the artists' full range of love and pain. That's definitely worth mentioning.
Or perhaps worthy of an award.