PHOEBE BRIDGERS - what's the deal?

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

lol the woman who tweeted this has now turned it into a full-fledged song

in 2023 Phoebe Bridgers is gonna drop her third album & the opening track will be about hooking up in the car while waiting in line to get vaccinated at dodger stadium and it’s gonna make me cry

— Jensen McRae (@Jensen_McRae) January 15, 2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKNnby2fhEU

passes as solidly believable julien bridgers pastiche till the percussion comes in

lol not bad

Last Night:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LE5tafaayc

smashing guitars is so friggin lame

blew off the stage

John Prine to thread!

Ugh, John Hiatt I mean.

Counterpoint: Loudon Wainwright

Smashing guitars is lame... but also looks kind of fun.

i couldn't figure out what thread morrisp.

i really, really like the song. haven't heard it before.

I thought her vocals sounded kind of hesitant on both songs last night; is this due to terrible shitty monitors in the studio? She certainly doesn't usually pull back vocally the way it seemed she was and she doesn't strike me as someone who gets nervous doing TV at this point so I'm inclined to think this is some technical issue.

Counterpoint: Loudon Wainwright

SNL is notoriously bad at mixing vocals for their musical guests. Also you could tell she was a little bit nervous during Kyoto.

That said she didn't sound bad at all compared to other SNL performances I've seen.

She only sounded worse compared to her 2020 performances.

love phoebe but the first chorus of kyoto has been a struggle before. I also don't like the slow-build-up-to-screaming song.

'Garden Song' was my most listened to track of 2020, and I don't think you play it on snl, though.

SNL needs to borrow the people who set up in-studio music for Howard Stern. Every peformance there is impeccable.

I thought Kyoto sounded great

I thought the Kyoto performance was very flat and she was clearly nervous, though both got better as it went along.

It's amazing to me that anyone has the energy and space right now to give even the tiniest shit that SNL's musical guest smashed a cheap guitar on TV. Social media is a cancer.

It didn't look very smashed.

This whole thing is so fucking ridiculous and a sign of how much people need to fill the T**mp shaped vacuum on Twitter. Like, yes, that one Brooklyn dad made a stupid as shit, misogynistic tweet, but it should have just been ignored instead of blown up to a whole thing.

xpost yeah was gonna say might need a set-up but that's about it

i guess she asked permission to smash it and told danelectro in advance? lol

At least if this is still what the word means: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/smash

Fwiw, I've seen endless posts and tweets criticizing or expressing amazement at the people who are offended by this and literally zero posts or tweets expressing offence - which itself raises a question imo: if the prevailing response (afaict) is "how could this ruffle anyone's feathers? It's completely normal and expected rock star behaviour; she even got permission from the manufacturer and used a fake monitor", what is even the purpose or significance of such a gesture? I think I'm ambivalent: on the one hand, polite fake guitar-hitting seems somewhat pointless. On the other hand, there's a case to be made that actually impassioned genuine guitar-smashing is wasteful and destructive so maybe this is better?

xps

Apart from this, I actually found the performances fairly engaging, as someone who was largely left cold by the album and is a non-fan of the genre.