Phoebe Bridgers | Gossip turned into art

Phoebe Bridgers at the Venice Film Festival this year. Photo: Ottavia Da Re / Agenzia Sintesi Anyone who enters into a romantic relationship with a singer-songwriter must expect that the world will be told what it all was like after the relationship ends at the latest. On her third album “Lost Weekend,” Phoebe Bridgers sings about her faded love and her new love, among many other things. Her ex, actor Paul Mescal (“Normal People,” “Aftersun”) has a lot to listen to, and so do we. In the title song “Lost Weekend,” for example: “I talk in my sleep and you kiss like a girl” and “I loved you and you couldn’t forgive me for that.”

Now this is not gossip, but art, because Bridgers uses her love stories as material to tell about something that can be generalized. Of experiences that are very specific and arise from the connection between two people; and in which others can still see themselves.

This music is sad and enveloping, pleasing and catchy enough for country or adult rock radio, and at the same time completely original.

Once in the text (a line like “You know me, and I’ll never forgive you for that,” for example). And once in music. This is again very, very heartwarming on “Lost Weekend”. Indie folk as a basis on which many things can be built: synths, hymns, choirs, even surprising things like Justin K. Broadrick's guitar (Godflesh, Jesu). The sound is as clean and transparent as the crystal clear and at the same time warm voice. This music is sad and enveloping, pleasing and catchy enough for country or adult rock radio, and at the same time completely original. This mix might explain why Phoebe Bridgers' music is currently going through the roof in the USA, but also in Europe.

Feelings in widescreen, like a Taylor Swift for indie listeners, also in the sense that “Lost Weekend” is a relationship album. The new partner, the comedian Bo Burnham, also gets a song dedicated to him, an exuberant declaration of love. »Now I don’t know if I can make it tonight / But what are you doing the rest of my life«. Combined with the hope that the search is now over. Phoebe Bridgers always considers ambivalence in her stories about love and other relationships. The feeling of impending dependence creeps into the happiness: “This could be the end of wanting / I only exist if you’re watching.” It's not far back to "You know me, and I'll never forgive you for that."

The album of the week. Further texts at dasnd.de/ Plattenbau

The beauty and paradox of melancholic music in general is how happy and calming (if not joyful) it can make you. Phoebe Bridgers further perfected the sad indie song on “Lost Weekend.” It appears in a variety of forms: as a classic-sounding acoustic folk ballad with a country touch ("Haunted", "Still Standing", "Never Going Back"), as a slowcore shoegaze piece ("Kill Me"), as an introverted ambient ("Other Plans") and as perfect indie pop hits ("Lost Boys", "I Can't Wait").

Ghost music, if nothing else. The songs on “Lost Weekend” talk about how the people you were and are connected to shape your life and make up who you are. In songs that dissolve even depressing events in pleasant melancholy. Sad feel-good music.

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