The common adage may dictate that revenge is a dish best served cold, but—luckily for us—musicians tend to serve it piping hot, with a side of pettiness. And though plenty of standalone clap-back tracks have emerged from celebrity break-ups, it takes a certain level of passion, skill, and audacity to commit to an entire revenge album.
Lily Allen’s West End Girl—a scathing, no-holds-barred album allegedly at least partly inspired by the dissolution of her marriage to Stranger Things star David Harbour—takes the idea of airing your dirty laundry to a level that few others would dare to, even by today’s oversharing standards. Reportedly written and recorded in Los Angeles over the course of just 10 days, it has the feel of someone setting their diary entries and voice notes to music, and has spawned a thousand reaction videos since being released in October.
Rosalía’s Lux, meanwhile, sees pop’s most sonically ambitious star working through themes of sex, regret, heartbreak, and, yes, revenge. Though much of the press around the album—as well as its artwork, in which Rosalía dons a nun’s-habit-slash-straightjacket—has focused on the singer’s path to emotional salvation, there are plenty of shots fired throughout, perhaps most overtly on “La Perla,” in which she calls a former partner a “peace thief,” “emotional terrorist,” a “walking red flag,” and “huge disaster.”
Here, find 10 of the best to ever go long-form with revenge.
Lemonade, Beyoncé
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