Six Years Is A Long Time To Miss Someone, Welcome Back Phoebe Bridgers.
Words by Matt Keenan
Loving a musician who goes quiet is a feeling that takes a truly rare form, it’s quiet and internalized, not dramatic or visceral. It’s the 2am kind of grief, when you put on Stranger In The Alps or Punisher and you wish that there was more to listen to. You know there isn’t though, and you take your headphones off and go to sleep wondering for yet another night, will Phoebe Bridgers release another solo album?
Photo by Chris Maggio
Punisher arrived to the world in June 2020, a world which had just been sealed shut, and it somehow knew exactly how to communicate with the moment in a rare way that not many albums do. It was a record for the masked faces, social distancing, and loving people that you just couldn’t reach. Punisher went everywhere with us, not just as music, but as company. It was a representation of the unglamorous loneliness of that year, and by time things opened up again, Phoebe Bridgers was one of the most important voices in indie folk.
In 2023, we heard from Phoebe Bridgers alongside Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus in the form of The Record, one of the best albums of that year. What was a stadium selling out, frenetic sensation was in its own right irreplaceable, but doesn’t replace the magic of a lone artist's singularity. When Phoebe Bridgers is deciding what her songs need alone, and choosing a direction, the results are magical.
After the Grammys in 2024 she disappeared in a way that turned itself into a statement. There wasn’t a post, no features, no random single where she was credited that was spotted by a fanpage on Instagram or Twitter, it was becoming quite clear it was a choice. In the social media world, this is essentially the algorithmic equivalent of leaving a party without saying goodbye.
Lost Weekend, is out via Dead Oceans on August 14th.
When Phoebe returned to our theoretical party though, she came back feeling more like herself than ever. She popped up in Roswell, New Mexico, and held a pop-up show with an hour's notice, no promotion, and no phones. She then held another pop up show, and another, all alike. The shows made fans want to piece together notes like one of those boards with murder suspects and red yarn connecting motives and means. These shows all culminated in a show at Madison Square Garden, with no phones, and tickets that were only a dollar. It was so mythological and mundane, all at once.
Phoebe Bridgers comes back to the world with Lost Weekend, out August 14th via Dead Oceans. This is her third solo album, and her first in six years, produced with a stacked collaborator list including Jack Antonoff, Alex G, Tony Berg, and Ethan Gruska. The lead single “Lost Boys” is out now, featuring backup vocals from Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker.
Six years is a long time to miss someone, but Phoebe Bridgers has always understood something about time that many songwriters don’t – that the feeling doesn’t diminish, but instead it builds. It sits in the moment, with a specific song, and it’s there when you come back to it no matter how much time has passed, almost like lightning in a bottle. On August 14th, she let’s us back into her world to share what she’s been holding for six years, and we’re readier than ever.