boygenius: Baker Bridgers Dacus LLC

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I had a very similar feeling seeing them in Vancouver with trans kiddo.

husked, tonal wails (irrational), Monday, 21 August 2023 21:43 (one year ago) link

with my trans kiddo, I mean.

husked, tonal wails (irrational), Monday, 21 August 2023 21:43 (one year ago) link

Thinking about the (now locked) phoebe bridgers haters thread, and while I don't intend to relitigate the issue here, it struck me as odd to think about how bridgers frequently attracts those kinds of responses but baker and dacus largely do not. Part of that it just profile level and the fact that bridgers feels more celebrity-adjacent (dating paul mescal etc), but it's more interesting to imagine that it's also partly reflective of their diverging songwriting personas.

Of the three, bridgers' songwriting feels most obviously "gen z" to me (scare quotes intended) - that mix of deadpan and archness, both numb and emotionally needy. Like, I can imagine her letting a friend know she had just had serious surgery by writing "in the hospital, nearly met my grandma again lol", whereas baker if she sent a message at all would be like "you need to pick me up", and dacus would probably be giving her friends advice from her hospital bed without mentioning where she was. To be clear, this is not what I actually think these people would do in these circumstances, but rather what the narrator-characters of their songs imply to me.

Like that line in "cool about it" where bridgers sings "Once I took your medication to know what it was like" - which is presented as evidence for how deeply attuned to the other person and their reality she is, even though it's also a totally fucked up thing to do, and of course she knows that. Like, if the song generally is about the difficulty of walking back intimacy after a relationship ends, then bridgers' verse adds another layer: "there is no document of intimacy which is not at the same time a document of narcissism".

Tim F, Wednesday, 30 August 2023 07:40 (one year ago) link

I got into this band the way I get into most music these days: a song on a playlist or a Discover Weekly, a tickle that becomes an itch and so on. I knew Julien from her associations with Frightened Rabbit and knew of her confessional style; I had a vague sense of Phoebe Bridgers and no knowledge of Dacus at all. I very rarely look for live stuff or interviews so had no visual sense of the band at all. It wasn't until my daughter got into them and they became this intense lockdown thing, that I filled in the character backstories and what they meant to the fans.

Since then I've developed a vicarious appreciation of the closeness of things, most of which operates outside of the music yet seems utterly inseparable from it: the characters to each other, the 'characters' to the 'real' people involved, the relationship to the fans. Your second paragraph speaks to this: how porous the boundaries seem, how the band seem to blur the line between drama and 'real life'. Seeing them live cemented all of this and I wasn't really prepared for the emotional wallop of it and what it meant for me and the people there. The trio appeared on stage very briefly, at the end of Muna's set and it was like 30,000 people spontaneously burst into tears. It was extraordinary but also contributed to an ongoing feeling that this simply isn't sustainable; that they're playing that is so combustible it's bound to explode at some point. Julien is too damaged. Phoebe is just a chaos engine. Lucy will tire of being the third who walks beside them. Etc etc. I know it's all part of the mythos they've built but there it is.

Now, I am well aware this may be entirely personal and a shit ton of projection because of my relationship with my kid but I can't decide if this is just new to me and it's a 'welcome to true fandom, where the hell have you been?!' or a novel situation worthy of thinking about some more. Your post emboldened the latter reading but I may well be talking complete bollocks so forgive me if so.

(picnic, lightning) very very frightening (Chinaski), Wednesday, 30 August 2023 09:43 (one year ago) link

tl;dr - a daft old man is worried about the boys.

(picnic, lightning) very very frightening (Chinaski), Wednesday, 30 August 2023 09:48 (one year ago) link

It was extraordinary but also contributed to an ongoing feeling that this simply isn't sustainable; that they're playing that is so combustible it's bound to explode at some point. Julien is too damaged. Phoebe is just a chaos engine. Lucy will tire of being the third who walks beside them. Etc etc. I know it's all part of the mythos they've built but there it is.

wow, amazing

the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 30 August 2023 10:03 (one year ago) link

in the hospital, nearly met my grandma again lol

lol

maf you one two (maffew12), Wednesday, 30 August 2023 11:35 (one year ago) link

great post Tim F

corrs unplugged, Thursday, 31 August 2023 07:01 (one year ago) link

two months pass...

They killed on SNL tonight.

No one has ever done less holding a BC Rich

Paul Ponzi, Sunday, 12 November 2023 15:31 (one year ago) link

I enjoyed both songs. Old man me was also won over to them in part awhile back hearing Bridgers talk about music and her family and such on her Sirius XM radio show.

curmudgeon, Sunday, 12 November 2023 17:33 (one year ago) link

I just watched SNL and I really wanted David Letterman to walk out after they performed so I could get a handle on the relative heights of the band

Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 23 November 2023 00:38 (eleven months ago) link

wait I thought he was in the band..?

stuffing your suit pockets with cold, stale chicken tende (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 23 November 2023 01:18 (eleven months ago) link

Big ol’ Variety interview

https://variety.com/2023/music/news/boygenius-hitmakers-group-of-the-year-interview-1235813944/

Ned Raggett, Thursday, 30 November 2023 18:58 (eleven months ago) link

three weeks pass...
one month passes...

Only reaching #31 on the ILM end of year albums poll must have been too much for them.

Dan Worsley, Friday, 2 February 2024 21:39 (nine months ago) link

Not strong enough to be a band

jaymc, Friday, 2 February 2024 21:42 (nine months ago) link

I felt like that was kinda built into their thing. They were always going to go back to solo careers and/or other collaborations.

a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Saturday, 3 February 2024 01:58 (nine months ago) link

(which the article also says, if I'd actually read to the end)

a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Saturday, 3 February 2024 01:59 (nine months ago) link

Every band is on hiatus when they are not touring or recording.

Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 3 February 2024 02:09 (nine months ago) link

Yeah, in all honesty they probably didn't need to make an announcement. I pretty much figured once the tour was over, their next projects would be their own individual albums.

birdistheword, Saturday, 3 February 2024 17:57 (nine months ago) link

(Actually I should reel that back in - saying that at a private show is not exactly an announcement to the press.)

birdistheword, Saturday, 3 February 2024 17:58 (nine months ago) link

really like their new Gretsch signature guitar, based on the Broadcaster but without a Bigsby and has a trapeze bridge instead

https://gretschguitars.com/boygenius

Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 5 February 2024 15:34 (nine months ago) link

My favorite of their three lovable Grammy speeches last night. (This was the third one, so they'd already got most of the thank-yous out of the way.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-YIAw1Arrk

did they play "Layla" every time someone went to the stage?!

Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Monday, 5 February 2024 15:58 (nine months ago) link

or just boygenius!?

Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Monday, 5 February 2024 15:59 (nine months ago) link

I think the cues were pegged to the categories (so, "Rock Song" gets "Layla") — but I didn't pay enough attention to say for sure.

Wish at least one of those had been televised. (Or, I mean, part of the main broadcast. I guess those pre-show awards were streamed somewhere?)

jaymc, Monday, 5 February 2024 16:33 (nine months ago) link

xp

It made me think of Bridgers' great Clapton diss, tho.

It's pretty awesome to see how massive they've become and how I'm sure whatever they do next they'll individually be stars in their own right even more.

omar little, Monday, 5 February 2024 16:53 (nine months ago) link

gotta believe PB will move up to arenas now and Dacus / Baker to, like, 5000+ theaters and amphitheaters, right?

alpine static, Monday, 5 February 2024 17:22 (nine months ago) link

Makes me glad to have seen Baker and Dacus in smallish venues pre-boygenius. Not yet had the chance to see Bridgers.

one month passes...

Neat tribute in today's Double Jeopardy round.


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