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Hands up who's never been reduced to tears by a love song: not a lot of you, then. One of the supreme pleasures pop affords is the chance to wallow in pain – to hear lovesickness framed in heartrending melodies and phrases that trigger the tear-ducts. Music is not just the ultimate vehicle for catharsis, it's the universal language of identification: I'm not the only one who ever felt this sad/bad/abandoned. Over the following weeks, Rock's Backpages offers up a ton of sobworthy classics from all walks of pop. Country, soul, AOR, dance. You name the genre, we've scoured it for heartbreak greats. So get your handkerchiefs ready... here come the first 20! -- Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages

100: Daryl Hall & John Oates--"She's Gone," from Abandoned Luncheonette (Atlantic, 1974): "I'm sorry, Charlie, for the imposition/ I think I've got the strength to carry on, but I need a drink and a quick decision..." With a wonderful conversational opening – and the full tearjerkin' musical force of Atlantic sessionmen behind them – Daryl and John here come up with the absolute epitome of blue-eyed soul. "Everybody's high on consolation, everybody's tryin' to tell me what is right for me/ And my daddy tried to bore me with a sermon. But it's plain to see that they can't comfort me..."

99: John Cale--"(I Keep A) Close Watch," from Music For a New Society (Island, 1982): "I still hear your voice at night when I turn out the light and try to settle down..." Tearing at the heartstrings like a rock'n'roll Richard Burton, this is Cale at his most conventionally showbiz yet also most affecting, with his heart as his only – and very fragile – companion.

98: American Music Club--"I've Been A Mess," from Mercury (Reprise, 1993): AMC were a sensitive aberration in the macho world of '80s and '90s alternative rock. With this song, it's AMC singer Mark Eitzel's use of everyday language and avoidance of metaphor that makes the sentiment incredibly affecting. The way Eitzel sings "I've" and "you" here is about as racked-with-pain as you can get. The saddest singer's saddest song.

97: Bonnie Raitt--"Too Soon To Tell," from Nick Of Time (Capitol 1989): As Jay D. Maness's pedal steel weeps gently in the background, Bonnie conspicuously fails to get to grips with desertion. Maybe one day she'll get over the hurt, learn to deal with the pain, but "right now, it's just too soon to tell..."

96: Jerry Butler--"Make It Easy On Yourself," single (Vee-Jay, 1962): A Burt Bacharach masterpiece given added gravitas by one of soul's greatest baritones, "Make It Easy" is also that rare creature, the soul ballad sans recrimination – a truly magnanimous song of letting go. "Run to him... before you start crying too." The little groan Jerry lets out just before the fade is one of the most moving sounds ever emitted by a human being.

95: The Delfonics--"Tell Me This Is A Dream," single (Philly Groove, 1972): Recorded without the services of former svengali producer Thom Bell (who was by then producing the Stylistics), this is psychedelic soul at its trippiest, with flute and fake-sitar effects. Hart's demented falsetto request that "somebody please tell me this is a dream" sounds like it might refer to a drug trip, but he explains in a spoken middle eight that "You know, I'm just like a guy right now that don't wanna face the reality of the one I love leaving me."

94: Spiritualized--"Broken Heart," from Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space (Dedicated, 1997): "And I'm crying all the time/I have to keep it covered up with a smile." Grief beyond consolation: imagine a lovelorn junkie, wrapped in hymnal Brian Wilson chords, shrouded in strings and Jimmy Webb horns, and you've got the pivotal ballad on Jason Pierce's heartbreak masterpiece.

93: Dionne Warwick--"Walk On By," single (Scepter, 1964): "If you see me walking down the street, and I start to cry..." You just know that the street in question is East 82nd at Park Avenue: there's something essentially uptown, so very Manhattan, about this Bacharach and David classic. Warwick's icy cool delivers the emotional punch without fuss and palaver.

92: Percy Sledge--"It Tears Me Up," single (Atlantic, 1966): If Dionne Warwick is soul's vox urbana, then Percy's her down-home antithesis, and the street where he meets his ex-lover with another man is more Main Street, Alabama, than Gotham's Upper East Side. It'll tear you up too.

91: Slapp Happy--"Scarred For Life," from Ça Va (V2, 1998): "You can do it with kindness, keener than a knife..." The erudite trio of Dagmar Krause, Peter Blegvad, and Anthony Moore reassembled for a woefully overlooked album 10 years ago, and this exquisite track was its opening salvo.

90: Don Covay--"Leave Him, Pt. 1," from Super Dude, Vol. 1 (Mercury, 1973): "If you don't want his love..." Did the cheatin' soul-ballad genre ever produce anything as tender, as sweetly anguished as this classic falsetto deepie, cut and triple-tracked in Muscle Shoals by the man from whom Michael Phillip Jagger copped his whole vocal style?

89: Johnny Adams--"Lonely Man," from Heart & Soul (Charly): Boy, is he ever one abandoned guy. Louisiana's greatest falsetto singer whoops and shrieks over this fabulous Mac Rebbenack-penned ballad like his life depended on it. It probably did.

88: Eddie Hinton--"Hard Luck Guy," from Hard Luck Guy (Capricorn, 1998): "I'm a hard luck guy/I can't seem to get a grip on this love..." The white Otis Redding (or should that be the beige Bobby Womack?) shreds his vocal cords and tears our hearts out with this bereft, anguished wail from the pit of lovesickness – proof positive that deep Muscle Shoals soul lived on into the '90s.

87: Chic--"I Want Your Love," from C'est Chic (Atlantic, 1978): "All alone in my bed at night/I hug my pillow and squeeze it tight..." Not every heartbreak classic is slow and gut-churning: some of them you can even dance to. This is as funky as anything Nile'n'Nard ever did, but it's also shot through with pure, unrequited longing – the elegantly melancholy streak that helped Chic reach the parts of which other "disco" acts only dreamed.

86: Peter Hammill--"The Birds," from The Love Songs (Virgin, 1984): Hammill's eclecticism, odd dress-sense and dodgy prog-rock roots put many off, but he's recorded some uncompromising songs in his time. (Why else would the young John Lydon have been a fan?) A bleak meditation on the speed with which love withers ("Two days ago a girl I thought I loved suddenly didn't seem to matter at all") 'The Birds' is also a beautifully sustained metaphor. "Spring came early this year... now the birds don't know which way to sing and, my friend, neither do I..."

85: John Edwards--"I'll Be Your Puppet," from John Edwards (Aware, 1973): "You know folks say that a man's supposed to be a man/But I've come too far with you, girl, to start all over again..." The sometime Detroit Spinner gives one of the all-time great vocal performances in soul on this heart-shredding mid-tempo ballad from the pen of the great Sam Dees. Agony as aural orgasm, peaking in a falsetto shriek that'll curdle your blood.

84: Jimmy Webb--"If These Walls Could Speak," from Ten Easy Pieces (Guardian, 1996): A record crying out to have "unashamedly slushy" stamped across its forehead... but so what. No one does schmaltz more poignantly than Webb, and this immaculate song of loss and regret is as poignant as it gets. Plus anyone who reckons the man's songs are always sung better by others should listen to the way Jimmy phrases "cold and blind and weak..."

83: Aaron Neville--"I Love Her Too," from the original soundtrack album Heartbeat (A&M, 1983): This Jack Nitzsche-produced gem got lost in a soppy flick about Kerouac and Neal Cassady, but it's an immaculate vehicle for the supernal falsetto of doo-wop archangel Neville, who multi-tracks himself over piano triplets and strings as he addresses the age-old theme of becoming hopelessly smitten with your best friend's gal. "And when this song is over, she'll be going home with you..."

82: Abba--"Lay All Your Love On Me," single (Epic, 1981): Set to an atypical four-on-the-floor Eurostomp, this late Abba classic is a disco hymn of forlorn devotion – as touching and rapturous in its dread as "Knowing Me, Knowing You." "Cause everything is new, and everything is you/And all I've learned has overturned/What can I do?"

81: Rose Royce--"Love Don't Live Here Anymore," single (Whitfield, 1978): Singer Gwen Dickey is one pissed-off gal here. "You've abandoned me; love don't live here anymore," she snarls, her vinegary voice suiting the lashings of bitterness this song contains. Jeez, you almost feel sorry for the bounder.

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