Songfacts®:

• Sisters Alyson "Aly" Michalka and Amanda Joy "AJ" Michalka were very much a part of the Troy and Gabriella Disney school of wholesome pop until they released this electropop ditty. The lead single from Insomniatic, it found Aly and AJ evolving from their previous guitar-based material to a rock-infused synth sound with vocal processing effects. The song received positive reviews from critics, with most acknowledging it was superior to the teen fodder that corporate America was shoveling at its impressionable youth. Time magazine went as far as ranking "Potential Breakup Song" the ninth-best song of 2007 in their year-end list.
• Lyrically the song is, as the title states, about a potential breakup, with all the emotion involved. The guy is a jerk; he forgot his girlfriend's birthday and Aly and AJ know they're better off without him.
• Aly and AJ give a wink to the popular trend in the mid-2000s of pop artists having at least one breakup song.
  
  This is the potential breakup song
  Our album needs just one
  
  However, there is a twist at the end when after spending the whole song criticizing the boyfriend, the sisters offer the guy a second chance - on one condition.
  
  This is the potential make up song
  Please just admit you're wrong
  Which will it be?
• Released on June 26, 2007 by Hollywood Records, there are two versions of the song. The official album version, played on mainstream radio, includes some sexual innuendo that was removed in the squeaky clean version played on Radio Disney.
• "Potential Breakup Song" was Aly and AJ's biggest hit. It peaked at #17 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming their only US Top 40 hit, and also reached other charts worldwide.
• Aly and AJ wrote the catchy song with Rock Mafia, a production/songwriting team comprising Tim James and Antonina Armato. At the time, Rock Mafia was working with Disney stars signed to Hollywood Records, such as Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, and Selena Gomez. They co-wrote eight of Insomniatic's 13 tracks.
• The infectious bop garnered a revival in its popularity in 2020 thanks to fans lip-syncing to the tune in Tik Tok videos. Noting this, Aly and AJ released a new version of the song with explicit lyrics on December 29, 2020. The adult re-imagining of the breakup anthem finds the sisters dropping the F-bomb several times to express their frustration towards the jerk boyfriend.
• AJ and Joe Jonas dated for about a year and a half in the 2000s. Despite years of speculation and persistent rumors among fans, Aly and AJ have repeatedly said "Potential Breakup Song" wasn't inspired by him.
  
  The sisters revealed in a 2020 interview with Business Insider they didn't write the song about any particular person.
  
  "We were just like, 'Let's write a breakup song,'" AJ said at the time. "We weren't thinking it was going to be a breakup anthem, but it kind of became that, which is really cool."
  
  In May 2025, Aly & AJ and Joe Jonas humorously addressed the rumor in a TikTok video. After singing lines from the song, Jonas joked about the infamous "birthday" lyric, and Aly & AJ replied, "And they STILL think it's about you," further debunking the myth.
  
  Aly & AJ did admit that another song from their 2007 album Insomniatic, "Flattery," was inspired by Joe Jonas.