To this point, 2023 seems to be the year of the comeback in music with groups such as Busted, Young Fathers, and The Murder Capital making their first forays back into the scene in four or five years. However, none of these returns could ever be as high-profile as that of boygenius, the singer-songwriter supergroup comprised of Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker.
This long-awaited comeback takes shape in the simply-titled the record, their debut full-length album and first original music since 2018’s self-titled EP. the record is a deeply personal and vulnerable release, a combination of the three stars’ unique sounds into a cohesive, beautiful, and moving collection of songs about love and friendship.
The three songsmiths open the record with an a capella statement of intent. Offering their separate voices as one on the simple-yet-effective ditty ‘Without You Without Them’, the group immediately impart the closeness of their personal and musical friendship without even having to analyse the lyrics. Doing so does help, however – the refrain cements the members’ reliance on each other, setting up the album’s themes of exposing yourself emotionally to your friends alongside thankfulness and love for them: “I want to hear your story and be a part of it / Thank your father before you / His mother before him / Who would I be without you, without them?”.
Over the majority of the album’s remainder, each member brings songs with their own solo sound, which is then enhanced by the presence of the other two members. Nowhere is this more apparent than ‘$20’, one of three initial singles from the record. A Baker-led number, ‘$20’ rocks in following the a capella opener with her more soft-punk, indie-rock take on the singer-songwriter genre before all three vocalists dovetail separate melodic and lyrical lines in a chaotic, climactic end.
Bridgers’ mid-album offerings to the record are maybe the most understated despite likely being the brightest mainstream star of the three. Continuing the hazy, finger-picked sound of cuts such as ‘Halloween’ on her seminal album Punisher, ‘Emily I’m Sorry’ and ‘Revolution 0’ are trademark Bridgers-style emotional and poignant love songs – with more than a hint of another dedication to Elliot Smith in the vein of the aforementioned album’s title track.
While not directly referencing her friendship with the boygenius members on her cuts, the vulnerability of the album remains in copious amounts on Bridgers’ songs with lyrics such as “Emily, forgive me, can we / Make it up as we go along? / I’m twenty-seven and I don’t know who I am” belying this openness and need for special people in your life to guide you along your life’s path. And as all good friends do, Dacus bluntly guides Bridgers on the following ‘True Blue’ – “When you don’t know who you are / You fuck around and find out”.
A major theme of the record is knowing and being known by friends, and Dacus’ slow-build, Springsteen-esque anthemic tracks are the biggest exponent of this. Her choruses reveal this most directly, as the three sing “And it feels good to be known so well / I can’t hide from you like I hide from myself / I remember who I am when I’m with you” on ‘True Blue’, and “You said, “I might like you less now that you know me so well”” on ‘Leonard Cohen’, a humorous story of Dacus and Baker opting to listen to the song Bridgers put on intently over telling her she was driving the wrong way for ten minutes.
Dacus’ solo masterpiece on the record is ‘We’re In Love’. A desperate love song in which Dacus seeks reassurance in hypotheticals on whether she’d still be involved with the subject if she was “insane” or if they “rewrite their life”, the song winds to a close with a poignant verse where Dacus tells them how to find her in the afterlife. A beautiful easter egg lies right at the song’s conclusion, where Dacus sings “I will try to remind you of the hummingbirds” before Bridgers and Baker join in for the first time in the song – hummingbirds had became a symbol for the band following a shared early morning taxi journey, displaying the genius of Dacus as she tucks away a little nugget of boygenius friendship in an otherwise straight-up love song.
However, as the record started with all three in unison, its highlights lie in the songs where the three stars shine equally. The album’s centrepiece ‘Not Strong Enough’ displays strength in vulnerability with a distinct feminist streak, as they accept they are “Not strong enough to be your man” before chanting “Always an angel, never a god”, a cynical take on the status of women in worldwide religion. The Baker-written ‘Satanist’ chugs along underneath the three recognising that they are kindred spirits and calling to each other to subscribe to their respective worldviews, and ‘Cool About It’ is a folksy three-minute even split between the members. In each of their minutes, Baker, Dacus, and Bridgers reference each of their most emotional solo breakup songs – ‘Song In E’, ‘Night Shift’, and ‘Moon Song’ respectively.
the record is littered with these easter eggs and self-references, whether it be to the members’ solo work or within boygenius’ repertoire. This comes to its most poignant, emotional, and utterly heartrending climax right at the album’s end, with the Bridgers-led ‘Letter To An Old Poet’. In a moment which has already seen many fans left sobbing as the needle raises, the trio interpolate the melody and lyrics of favourite from the EP ‘Me And My Dog’, where the “I wanna be emaciated” verse is transformed into the headstrong yet touching “I wanna be happy / I’m ready to walk into my room without lookin’ for you / I’ll go up to the top of our building / And remember my dog when I see the full moon”.
This and many other moments on the record will and have left listeners in various states of shambles, as Baker, Dacus, and Bridgers combine their lyrical and musical talent into a threefold masterclass in baring all to the recording studio. However, the “sadgirl supergroup” label that boygenius are often tarred with is extremely unfair and reductive. Yes, the music may often be sad, and yes, it’s made by women, but these are not its defining features and by no means are what boygenius want to pigeonhole it with. On the record, the trio let the world know that they are just three friends who are lucky enough to make music together, and no matter the gender identity or indeed emotional state of their listeners, everyone will find something to relate to and love about this release.
Words by David Harrold
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