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In the latter half of my 20s, it has become apparent that I now cry at the drop of a hat. Not sure if that’s because I’m increasingly aware of my own mortality and the mortality of my loved ones, if I’ve become more in touch with my emotions and how to process them through physical reaction, or if I’m just one of the Highly Emotional People that Marina was singing about on her last album. Maybe a combination of all of three. Whatever it is, it has made me even more interested in songs written about the delicate act of crying, especially ones written by pop artists with mass appeal.

Though pushback about the merits of pop music as a genre has somewhat lessened in the time of PopCrave, Twitter, and TikTok, there are still those quick to dismiss music made by big-name artists as less than. Musical gatekeepers believe songs written to appeal to broad groups of people through the machine of pop can’t possibly be imbued with as much vulnerability and true emotion as those written by artists dabbling in indie, underground subgenres designed to stay hidden in the annals of SoundCloud and stuck to the dusty floors of dive bars forever. On her recent episode of Hot Ones, Lorde—through a mouthful of hot wings—was asked by host Sean Evans what she finds sacred about pop music:

“Ever since I was a kid, even before I made anything, I had the sneaking suspicion that it was more difficult to speak to a lot of people than it was to speak to a small amount. There’s something really special about that…I love writing a pop melody. There’s nothing better. For it to be simple but secretly complex and kind of trick the brain…you can’t fake it! It’s a real experience. That’s kind of what it is for me, that feeling of being able to talk to a lot of people, uh, and to make something that’s kind of high brow but can be enjoyed in really simple ways.”

That kind of approach to songwriting is precisely what makes songs about crying so fascinating to me. They’re wholly personal—crying is something we only let ourselves do if we’re completely comfortable with our surroundings or so overwhelmed in a moment that our body produces an uncontrollable physical reaction—but these songs are also still designed to have a commercial, mass appeal that fans can identify with so easily. Whether the lyrics are descriptive and intricate might matter some, but not much. Bombastic, lyrically sparse songs about crying can be just as effective as six-minute lyrical epics about breaking down and bursting into tears. But the brilliant thing about them is that either way, they use their mass appeal to create stories that allow some glimmer of relief and relatability for the listener, even if only for a few moments. Often times, letting the tears fall is a much easier thing to do when we know someone else’s are pouring too. Pop songs about crying are an underrated lyrical subgenre, one that only grows in importance as the world becomes a more frightening place to wake up every day. They’re a necessity for any pop music fan. Whether these songs are written from screaming pain, quiet acceptance, or welcoming catharsis on the dance floor, there’s a mood here to fit any sobfest you like.

The Dr. L*ke-produced Kesha years obviously hold their own darkness to them now, but among the catalog of massive, chart-topping hits, there are buried some truly beautiful, resonant songs that highlighted Kesha’s talent as a budding songwriter, early proof that her talents were never exclusive to the robotic, whiskey-soaked image her abusive label and producers pushed onto her. “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes” may be hyper-dramatic and overproduced, but those qualities lend themselves wonderfully to the song’s perspective of a young woman in her early 20s, realizing she was the cause of her relationship’s dissolution and that there’s no more happiness to be found on the club floor, trying to carelessly dance the pain away. This is precisely what it feels like to be young and fragile, every breakup the end of the world—the perfect song to scream and flail along to until your voice breaks.

(Next Step: “The Harold Song”)

A good portion of Katy Perry’s last album, Smile, may have seemed like a regression for the same person who created the cultural touchstone masterpiece Teenage Dream ten years prior, but there are a handful of great songs buried in the album’s tracklist (justice for “Harleys in Hawaii,” the #1 that got away). “Teary Eyes” is perhaps the best of those hidden gems, a lovely electropop jam with a swirling, tear-stained second and final chorus. The lyrics may be a bit trite, sort of sounding like the pop girl version of the ad copy from an infamous Zoloft commercial, but the thumping bassline and encouraging keep on daaaanciiiingggg final lines push “Teary Eyes” to a genuine place, with Perry the sweet, doting mother telling her fans that the only way out is through.

(Next Step: “Cry About It Later”)

One of the many preternatural gifts Amy Winehouse had was her ability to skate along the lines of potent, accessible emotion while her lyrics dipped into stories of personal experience, making her music seem, at times, somewhat seedy but always refreshingly easy to identify with. There was no sugarcoating with Winehouse, she let her voice add the bittersweetness to her music. “Tears Dry On Their Own” is so genius because it manages to capture the instantly recognizable feeling of knowing you’re doing something so unhealthy for your emotional state, doing it anyway, questioning why the hell you’d do it, and then immediately answering your own questions. It’s as if Winehouse meant it to be a commentary on the human psyche and our proclivity for masochism and self-destructive behavior—something she wrote about so deftly. “Tears Dry On Their Own” is a remarkable, clever song about accepting our own vices, and a reminder that Winehouse’s talent will always be simply unparalleled.

(Next Step: “Love is a Losing Game”)

Soft and cooing, “my tears ricochet” is another sublime example of why Taylor Swift is one of (if not the) greatest songwriters of her generation. folklore was a breakthrough in Swift’s songwriting, it displayed a new level of her innate ability to capture emotion through metaphor. “my tears ricochet” isn’t necessarily about the act of crying itself, but rather what happens when you make life-altering decisions that are impossible to remove yourself from the lasting effects from for years to come. It’s also a perfect, Mariah Carey-level use of one of the great underused verbs in the English language. Of course, a writer like Swift can use it to evoke an image so vividly.

(Next Step: “tolerate it”)

One of the more experimental tracks on an already highly experimental mixtape, “Tears” uses the icy, robotic autotune favored by Charli XCX and pairs it with Caroline Polachek’s cacophonous voice to work in tandem with perfect precision. “Tears” is loud, violent, and cold, just how it feels to slowly realize that you and your partner have fallen out of love. There’s a feeling of intense anger that comes along with that realization—how could we have let this happen?—and that rage explodes on “Tears” as Polachek’s voice unfurls into a gnarly, wounded scream behind the song’s second chorus. XCX and Polachek are two songwriters who do exceptionally well with funneling emotion into abstraction without losing the listener, and “Tears” is no exception. It’s a wild collaboration, but one of the songs here that may allow for the strongest level of release.

(Next Step: “Lucky”)

What started out as only a 54-second interlude on his fantastic In A Dream EP, “could cry just thinking about you” eventually expanded into a full track after fans expressed their love for the song’s open-hearted vulnerability. It’s not easy to admit that you were the one to fuck up a relationship, much less to admit how badly you wish you could take it all back. Sivan sings about how his ex has come an irrevocable part of his life, inserting the ghost of his love into Sivan’s every decision. The very thought is enough to do him in. The song’s coda is a beautifully heartbreaking, resigned acceptance, “I don’t know who I am, with or without you/I guess I’m ‘bout to find out.”

(Next Step: “Easy”)

Ava Max may sometimes seem like a label-made amalgamation of every pop star, designed to create lab-perfected earworms to influence the masses—and she is!—but she’s also an incredibly talented pop songwriter with a gift for turning out some of the most danceable hooks of the 2020s. “EveryTime I Cry,” a song with capitalization decisions as indecipherable as her haircut, is another in her latest string of hits. It’s a clear-cut, perfectly digestible pop song with a message that’s simple but true (“every time I cry, I get a little bit stronger!”) but bolstered by an irresistible, glitching electronic bassline that verges on transitioning into nu-house by the end of the song. Appropriate, then, since House is a genre so built on making the listener feel lighter and cleansed—exactly how this song makes you feel as its final beats fade to silence.

(Next Step: “Blood Sweat Tears”)

Her tear-soaked collaboration with Charli XCX may have been a rageful song about the disintegration of a relationship, but “Ocean of Tears” is a gorgeous, plaintive track about the emotional perils of distance. “The only thing that’s separating you and me tonight/ah!/is an Ocean of Tears,” Polachek coos, creating a vividly painted portrait of the layers of desperation that stand between her and her love. As her tears pour, she begs for just a hint of respite: “show me the future, yeah I’m all eyes.” Asking your lover to quell your fears with tales of your future together is an act arguably more vulnerable than crying alone in your room, keeping your emotions hidden. On “Ocean of Tears,” the pulsating love at the heart of Polachek’s despondency keeps her from holding anything back.

(Next Step: “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings”)

What more can be said of perhaps the most fittingly appropriate song for the hell of 2020, a year where none of us were safe from our own volatile emotions. “Rain On Me” is a magnificent triumph; an acceptance of all of the pain, evil, and strife we must endure as humans and a roadmap to the eye of the storm through the torrential downpour of tears. It’s a subject that both Gaga and Grande have written about before, but never quite like this, and certainly not at this stage of their lives and careers. After suffering more pain than humanely imaginable—both physical and emotional, and often stemming from their choice to remain in the public eye—the two pop powerhouses came together for a song that still sounds as fresh and feels as purifying as it did at the height of the world’s worst moments. There is unlimited power in accepting that you will experience pain as a human and ceasing to fight against that fact. What you once thought would make you weak will restore you, and this wallop of a song will help you get there. “Rain On Me” is as jubilant as music can possibly be.

(Next Steps: “1000 Doves” & “no tears left to cry”)

There was no one more equipped for channeling the pure, base-level emotion of being human into the most remarkable music you’ve ever heard than SOPHIE. Her capacity for understanding what it meant to be not only alive, but thinking, creating, and feeling every moment of the day, and somehow turning that into sound, was—and is—truly extraordinary. “It’s Okay To Cry” is not just a song, it’s an entire audiovisual experience, a rare glimpse into a life and a persona kept private until its owner was ready to reveal herself. SOPHIE’s introduction of her Transness to the world is a gift to us all: a song that’s allowing itself to be held close and transmogrified, ready to be used for comfort and healing through whatever we may be experiencing, with the unrivaled Sophie Xeon as our otherworldly guide. When I listen to this song, I am both inconsolably sad and impossibly happy. I will always wish that we could have had her for longer, but I know that it’s okay to cry.

(Next Step: “Infatuation”)

[Top Shelf, Low Brow is a newsletter dedicated to dissecting the whole spectrum of pop culture, from Arthouse to Housewives. If you enjoyed this article, please support the newsletter by sharing it! New editions of Top Shelf, Low Brow arrive Mondays and every other Friday. You can subscribe for free to receive it directly to your inbox.]

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