Given the outsized presence Phoebe Bridgers has in my household, I’m shocked that I’ve featured only two of her songs, one of which was a version of ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas‘ posted on the holiday.
My daughters are huge fans of Bridgers, as a solo artist and as part of the duo Better Oblivion Community Center and the trio Boygenius. Given her similarities to, and appreciation of, Elliott Smith, she should be right up my alley, too.
One of the main reasons I’ve come to love horror movies is that, for all of their lowbrow pleasures, they so often are high art. Horror directors play with style, form, and technique with a freedom and fervor you don’t find as consistently in other genres.
I think part of that has to do with budgets. Horror films are famously low-budget affairs, which benefits them in a couple of ways. First, it forces filmmakers to innovate, whether it’s using practical effects or utilizing camera movement and editing to generate suspense. The most famous example is probably Jaws, in which Steven Spielberg came up with his shark’s-eye view because his mechanical shark wasn’t working.
Nobody seems to have cracked the code behind the order of Taylor Swift’s ‘Taylor’s Version’ re-recordings (and Swifties being Swifties, many have tried). Swift started the project by releasing her second album, Fearless, skipping over her self-titled debut. And she followed that one with 2012’s Red, her fourth studio album.
Red is a fan favorite, and the album where Swift started shedding the “country” part of her signature country-pop sound. The album features a few songs that would have fit comfortably on Fearless, but it also contains three dance-pop tracks co-written with Swedish hitmakers Max Martin and Shellback.
The Record, the first full-length release by supergroup Boygenius, is one of the year’s most celebrated releases so far. Boygenius is a collaboration between indie rockers Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus, a trio who have written and performed together since 2018 when not nurturing their own successful solo careers.
I’m quite familiar with Bridgers, who is a favorite of my daughters, but the other two artists are new to me. This lovely, powerful album suggests I should spend some time getting to know them as well.
Still out of the country and unable to blog… offering up some new releases in my absence. I hope to return soon!
🎵 Phoebe Bridgers Deep Dive 🎵
→ My exploration of Phoebe Bridgers’ catalog
