Phoebe Bridgers Returns From the Dark With 'Lost Weekend,' and It Was Worth the Wait
Words by Matt Keenan
Six years is a long time to have to wait for anything; I mean, think of the last time you waited six years for anything. In the time since we last heard a Phoebe Bridgers solo record, she’s gone on a run that’s seen her win three GRAMMY’s with boygenius, potentially almost got married to Paul Mescal, her father passed away, and has more of a reason than possibly anybody else to want to disappear.
On Lost Weekend, Phoebe cements the fact that her voice will echo through the ears of generations and be heard by their children’s children. This record is the sound of someone finding themselves again after climbing out of a hole they didn’t mean to fall into in the first place. It’s seventeen songs that reaffirm her place among the caliber of songwriters you find once in a generation, and examine this absence from the limelight.
Lost Weekend still holds onto Phoebe’s signature whisper-soft vocals and creeping dread, but the arrangements have gotten far more courageous and significantly more weird. The strange nature of her arrangements doesn’t pull the record back at all, though; it actually emboldens it. The roster of people collaborating on this record is basically a list of anyone Phoebe’s ever trusted with a bridge section - Jack Antonoff, Alex F, even Bo Burnham shows up in the credits. Not to mention Cameron Winter makes an appearance on backing vocals (who are we kidding? We all know it’s him; let’s not fool ourselves. Who else has a voice like that, pseudonym or not?).
In terms of actual subject material, there’s a lot to cover, sure, but the album navigates it really well. “Still Standing” digs into old family wounds with the kind of specificity that makes you wince on her behalf. The title track gestures towards her called-off engagement without ever spelling it out (we don’t need her to we know who it is), but it’s this ambiguity that’s running through the very ventricles of this record. Grief doesn’t always give you a tidy villain to be mad at, and neither does love when it goes awry.
Then there’s “Lost Boys,” the lead single, which might be the closest thing to a “happy” moment on this record. Sure, “Haunted” has a nice little beat to it until you start listening to the words and feel like you got hit by a train, but “Lost Boys” does feel very akin to “Kyoto” in the way it’s brought together by fingerpicked guitars and breezy horns. The song is about men who refuse to grow up, and it sneaks up on you with how catchy it is; you’ll be caught by the melody before you realize how much it hurts. On this record, Phoebe Bridgers has mastered the dissonance between hook and heartbreak.
What I think is most striking about Lost Weekend, though, is how unafraid it is to wander. You won’t run to listen to this one on a commute to work, or on the way to a date, or probably on the way to anything where you’re required to be happy, but it sure is one you’ll want to listen to for those times where you’re allowed to wander yourself. The aimless structure finds you feeling like you’re walking through a maze, stress is rising, and around every turn there’s something new. Maybe around one corner is an electronic element, and another corner is an acoustic guitar, and then you try another way out of this metaphorical maze just to be shot in the chest by hearing the Graceland Too melody in Liberty Tree.
By the time you reach the reprise at the very end, something’s different. After sixteen tracks of sitting in grief and disillusionment, and love that refuses to behave, she lands on something close to hope. She sings an acknowledgment that she and whoever is listening are both going to be okay; it’s not a bow on top but rather proof that she knows she lived through it to get to this moment.
Is Lost Weekend a perfect album? In my opinion, yes. It chronicles the evolution of an artist who has learned a few things along the way, none of them easy, and most of them broke her heart again and again but that’s Phoebe Bridgers for you. Perfect was never the point, and because of her lack of trying for perfect, she stumbled upon it anyway. It’s almost as though this is the universe's reward to someone who’s been through it all, and is literally (and metaphorically) still standing. It’s about fame wearing you down, about losing a parent, and about loving someone who might not be good for you but loving them anyway. It’s also the most collaborative and generous record she’s ever made, but is all Phoebe Bridgers.
The disappearance of Phoebe Bridgers clearly gave her a lot to say, and she navigates it brilliantly and painfully. Lost Weekend is a comprehensive, clever documentation of someone piecing herself back together on her own terms, and it’s a journey into the mind of a once-in-a-lifetime songwriter who invites you to sit in the wreckage of her mind with her, and nothing can prepare you for it.
Lost Weekend is out now via Dead Oceans, and you can listen to it wherever you find your music.
