PHOEBE BRIDGERS - what's the deal?

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.

listen, if the neck doesn't snap, you didn't smash the guitar. call me old fashioned, that's just how i was raised by my pappy

If the neck doesn't split, you must acquit

Trying to imagine Hendrix going to Fender and Monterey security days in advance like "OK if I torch this strat? I'll lay some protective stuff on the stage first, don't worry"

Or Sinead dutifully securing the green light from the Catholic church before tearing up the pic of old popey on national tv

smashing an instrument is a meaningless rockstar gesture even when done, uh, correctly afaic but watching that clip I felt embarrassed for everyone involved

lol sufjan

the amount of conversation about this even here is almost certainly misogyny

I dunno it's just a goofy thing imo

the funniest part is that they made a fake monitor for the event per bridgers on twitter, i was wondering because i thought that thing really sparked up a lot for getting hit with a guitar, usually stage wedges are generally passive speakers, but even if they were powered that would be a lot

Misogynist take on live sound imo

the band begins to play. the lead singer is singing. but what's this -- she is also winding new pickups for her guitar. will she finish assembling the guitar by the time the song reaches her solo? nobody knows. she is soldering the pickup wire to the 5-way switch. the iron isn't hot enough! this is fucking rock n' roll.

isnt that the "from a motel 6" video

she's throwing the solder balls from the cold joints into the audience! she joins the wires with twist-ons because who gives a shit. she didn't add any capacitors -- every frequency is invited to this party of a solo. here it comes!

I thought the performances were fine by SNL standards and the guitar-smashing was jokey fun. It's just exhausting the things people decide need to be A Topic of Conversation.

twitter just needs things to chew through every day

for each new snl ep, there's an article that describes what the cast and guests said in the 15 second promos. this is just normal snl churn.

Just watched her do “Kyoto” with Phillip Glass on piano, Jackson Browne on backing vocals and some orchestral string players whose names I didn’t catch , as part of the Tibet House benefit stream