PHOEBE BRIDGERS - what's the deal?

Some really beautiful versions on CBS too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7sYhuYroHo

I don't know if this was linked before and it's a year and a half old, but this boygenius performance is off the hook amazing, particularly the take on Me and My Dog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96wDhimQ6nw&t=1018s

hm

https://youtu.be/96wDhimQ6nw

literally every time i watch them play Me & My Dog (in any session, not just this one ^) I get the shivers when Phoebe screams her part at the end

i must be nearly 2 years and, i dunno, 40 or 50 views in?

this record's production sounds significantly fuller and better on my proper headphones than earbuds, haven't encountered this level of discrepancy between those in recent memory

i've been playing dead
my whole life
and i get this feeling
whenever i feel good
it will be the last time.

this album is an out and out masterpiece

one uncomfortable thing about her songwriting is how literally autobiographical it is. i always kind of resisted songwriting like that, and appreciated how bob dylan, even at his most confessional, would disguise his experiences in several layers of myth, just enough to give the people in life plausible deniability (somewhat not really).

however, the literalism of bridgers' lyrics seem essential to the enterprise. something about affirming the absolute reality of one's biography in an era when our identities are spread across tech platforms and like political affiliations. which is another way of saying the album feels very grounded, in a way that might have seemed naive if every song didn't hit so hard and true.

How does this new album compare to her earlier Stranger in the Alps? I couldn't click with that one, even as I recognized her obvious talent.

the production is more ambitious.

xp i think there's still a layer of myth here, or at least a fascination with urban legend that keeps it just outside of "absolute reality"

fwiw I almost gave up on Stranger in the Alps after four or five listens, but two songs from it came up on shuffle relatively close together and they both wowed me and that was the key to unlocking it.

for me, the song that sold me was "Motion Sickness."

when i learned it was about ryan adams, i was disappointed at first. it felt gossipy or something. but then i thought more about it and realized it was still a great song and an honest song. i don't think she was trying to trash him in it -- even though that would have been her prerogative, i don't think that would have made for a good song. but it's really about her experience, being disillusioned with some charismatic jerk she was infatuated with and still despite herself misses. (i've been there).

this, though, probably stung ryan adams, especially in a song that is so much better than anything he's ever written:

And why do you sing with an English accent
I guess it's too late to change it now

I very rarely -- "Sara" an exception, maybe -- felt Dylan was an autobiographical or confessional a songwriter.

blood on the tracks is about his divorce. but he tells the story in a refracted way.

it's my favorite album.

and the distance is part of what makes it work. or that tension -- you know, "is this him talking again or is he singing from the perspective of some rambler in the old west"?

Mine too, but at the risk of pedantry, I'd say it's "an album in which a guy and his wife divorce." Dylan isn't even much of a storyteller: he shares jokes, plagiarizes Americana, quotes Scripture, steals his ideas about women from Westerns.

sure, he takes you on a journey, but "finds in it, after all, a place for the genuine."

'if you see her say hello' and 'shelter from the storm' - the heart of the album - don't feel like pastiche.

Agree.

Back to Bridgers!

people use "refracted" to describe clever, nonlinear narratives in art as if the common experience of refraction is to look at your hand through a swarovski crystal dolphin in sunlight. oooooo. but our most common experiences with applied refraction are through corrective or camera lenses, which aim to give just an accurate image of reality.

good point

write-in vote for "fractured"

your favourite Punisher songs, now with strings! https://phoebebridgers.bandcamp.com/album/copycat-killer

this version of Kyoto is gorgeous.

it doesn't work very well to me, the vocals feel quite detached from the backing. maybe they should have slowed it down a little?

sappier sickly string arrangements def not what i want from my phoebe bridgers :(
(you too, julien baker!)

the strings sound great on the album version of “savior complex”

Yeah, that sample track doesn't make me feel really excited about this EP. But it's okay, can't blame her for playing around with something during the pandemic, and the original album is still getting plenty of spin around here.

Sounds real nice to me. Rob Moose is a wonderful arranger

Really into "Kyoto" recently. Not sure why it took so long to go from "solid tune I hear on the radio" to "could cry just thinking about."

She just released a cover of Iris by Goo Goo Dolls with Maggie Rogers helping out on harmonies:

https://phoebebridgers.bandcamp.com/track/iris

Judging by every cover she has made in the past year or so, I think she should really consider doing a proper covers album.

lol @ the cover art

Really into "Kyoto" recently. Not sure why it took so long to go from "solid tune I hear on the radio" to "could cry just thinking about."

― swing out sister: live in new donk city (geoffreyess), Thursday, November 12, 2020 10:52 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

it's unbelievable to me this album is only a few months old. kyoto and chinese satellite in particular feel like songs i've known for years.

Seems «Iris» has been taken down?

It was a one-day-available deal

Ah, it was a 24 hour benefit thing, apparently.

it sold an amazing amount during that one day -- 28,000 copies in the us, which is ~double or more what the top-selling digital download tends to pull in a typical week these days

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRyvr6h3nHw

here's it if anyone missed it

it's better than the original

I like how this thread title evokes a Seinfeld-ish stand-up bit...

“First there was Courtney Barnett... she was pretty good! Like if Sheryl Crow had a few Nirvana CDs and a reliable weed connection! Then there was Soccer Mommy... when I first heard her, I thought Liz Phair was trying to sneak back into the industry under an assumed name! And now this Phoebe lady... what’s the deal??”

This is why it happened

if trump loses I will cover iris by the goo goo dolls

— traitor joe (@phoebe_bridgers) November 3, 2020

I wonder if it was recorded already and she was just waiting for an occasion to drop it

i like it but it is not better than the original

it's better than the original

Yeah, this is just silly.

needs more nick cage

How’s this for a fun fact:

«Rzeznik named the song after country folk singer-songwriter Iris DeMent, after he noticed her name in a concert listing in the LA Weekly newspaper.»

i've never really liked "iris", it's too overwraught, so i was quite impressed by how bridgers made it sound like she could have written it, i much prefer her arrangement

The original is one of those songs you just have to give in to, imo. I tried to resist when I was a sullen teenager, but lost the fight pretty quick.

The original is one of those songs you just have to give in to, imo. I tried to resist when I was a sullen teenager, but lost the fight pretty quick.

The original video for Iris is weird, having now just paid attention to it for the first time ever.

2 Phoebes made a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJlR3pvgLQA