#1 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — boygenius

January 31, 2024 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

the record by boygenius

“Give me everything you’ve got”: the first words you hear, sung in glorious three-part harmony by Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus. And “everything” is exactly what boygenius, the group formed by these three already-plenty-accomplished singer-songerwriters, has given us. Ladies and gentlemen, the record by boygenius is the Bacon Review #1 album of 2023.

You have likely heard of these three — each of the individual most recent albums from Baker, Bridgers, and Dacus have appeared in past Top 31s (Little Oblivions at #6 in 2021, Punisher at #2 in 2020, and Home Video at #23 in 2021, respectively (but none of their earlier albums because I had my head in the ground, apparently). And while I do love the music from each of them individually, there is something “super” about the music produced by this supergroup.

I first fell in love with boygenius on their self-titled 6-song 2018 EP. The three women met while Bridgers and Dacus both opened for Baker on separate tours in 2016, and joked about the “pipe dream” of the three of them forming a band. They booked a co-headlining tour in 2018, and sat down to write one new song that they all could perform together on stage. The EP came out of that initial energy, written, recorded and produced in four days. While the EP was well-received, it didn’t appear on the Top 31 that year because I had stupid restrictions about what could make it onto the list, and EPs didn’t qualify. ¹

As time went on, signs were pointing to them doing something more together. All three performed on each others’ 2020 and 2021 albums mentioned above, contributing mostly backing vocals to a handful of songs. And then in late 2021 they performed together as boygenius again at a benefit show in San Francisco. They separated throughout 2022 to allow themselves to headline on their individual tours to promote their Covid-released albums from the years prior. In the fall of 2022 they got back together and secretly recorded what would become the record. The official announcement of the album came on January 18, with a release of the trio of tracks, “$20,” “Emily I’m Sorry,” and “True Blue” as the lead singles from the album. (the film, featured above, is the accompanying video that was released a couple months later. Directed by actress-cum-director Kristen Stewart, it focuses on each of the three women on the song in which they were the lead writer on: Baker, Bridgers, then Dacus.)

The pre-release hype continued to build with the release of a fourth single, “Not Strong Enough,” along with an accompanying video shot by the three singers and edited by Bridgers’ brother Jackson (who also directed the video that features Bridgers for The National’s “Your Mind Is Not Your Friend,” mentioned in yesterday’s #2 album review). All four singles were instant, ear-worm classics, on repeat in the Bacon Review home up until March 31 when the record finally saw full release. It was an easy transition from listening to the four singles back to back, to listening to the full album on repeat, and it continues through to today.

Each individually known for their command of deep, emotive lyrics, and each with their own singing / vocal style, the record plays well to their strengths. Some songs have a clear lead throughout, with the other two women singing harmonies. And some songs, such as “Not Strong Enough”² and “Cool About It” (and it’s great animated video) feature each singer separately taking a verse or bridge all to themselves. Their voices are distinct between them – Bridgers higher and raspier, Baker full-bodied, and Dacus lower with all the edges filed down.

Not only did I love this album,³ it resonated well with my family, and that always factors into what gets played in the household. One of the beauties of this album in particular is my son, who is fifteen and has broken free from my musical clutches to form his own tastes, came to me one day and asked “have you heard of boygenius?” I’d be hard-pressed to find a parenting moment as rewarding as having my child discover a band himself and love it independent of my direct influence (while clearly having been indirectly influenced by living under my roof for 15 years).

There are many moments in this album where the lyrics are so heartfelt and gorgeous, paired with the perfect rise in volume or culmination in instrumentation that it causes chills. The chorus of “True Blue” (“and it feels good to be known so well, I can’t hide from you like I hide from myself”). The third verse of “Cool About It” (with its interpolation of Paul Simon’s “The Boxer” so strong they thanked him for the inspiration on the liner notes), that goes “Once, I took your medication to know what it’s like, and now I have to act like I can‘t read your mind.”

The climax of “$20” is particularly brilliant, with Baker on lead singing “Gas, out of time, out of money, you’re doing what you can, just making it run” while Dacus sings “Take a break, make your escape, there‘s only so much I can” and Bridgers slowly repeating “Can you give me twenty dollars” over and over building to a screaming crescendo. Each of their voices weave in and out, all layers and words, yet entirely distinct to the careful listener.

None of the members of boygenius are yet 30. While I can’t say for sure there will be more songs/albums to come from the band, they each have literal decades in front of them to continue to blow us away. From what I’ve seen, the tour videos, and the instagram posts, the three of them have been having a blast writing and performing together. It feels impossible that they won’t be able to figure out how to keep that energy going well into the future. Maybe they’re establishing a pattern – get together, record and tour, then break for some solo replenishing, only to reconvene four years later. Or maybe they’ve truly given us everything they’ve got. We’ll continue to get solo music from each of them for sure, so if we’ve gotten all the boygenius songs we’ll ever get, the ep, the record, and the rest, would be more than enough.

^{1. You can watch their Tiny Desk Concert or their Live on KEXP performance if you’d like a little snippet of what they all sounded like 5+ years ago.↩}
^{2. Watch their SNL performance from November, backed by their all-girl band, to see how this plays out across “Not Strong Enough.” Baker taking the “Always an angel, never a god” bridge to its full climax is awe inspiring.↩}
^{3. The band released an additional EP in October, called the rest. It featured four slower songs recorded during the sessions for the record. “The Voyager” from the rest is particularly great, featuring additional writing from Conor Oberst.↩}

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#6 on the 2021 Bacon Top 31 — Julien Baker

January 26, 2022 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

Little Oblivions by Julien Baker

I’ve done a great disservice to the artist here at #6. Little Oblivions is the third album by singer/songwriter Julien Baker, yet it’s the first of her’s to appear on the Top 31. I’ve enjoyed her previous album, 2017’s Turn Out the Lights, but it came out mere days before I put together my list for 2017, and so it consequently missed inclusion. And don’t even ask about her debut, 2015’s Sprained Ankle.

I’ve mentioned Baker a couple times in other reviews, as she’s quite chummy with Lucy Dacus (#23 this year) and Phoebe Bridgers (#3 last year). The three of them teamed up as boygenius on an ep back in 2018, and left us begging for more. If you’re a fan of any of those three, you’re a fan of all three. But each has their own voice and spin on where they take the role of “honest and fucked up.”

Of the three, Baker’s voice is strongest. Where Bridgers is delicate, and Dacus is smooth, Baker is wrought. Self-doubt, suicidal tendencies, and alcoholism are common refrains in Baker’s songs, all dripping with the raw emotion that proves she’s lived every bit of it. And there’s so much power behind it all, too. Baker can (and often does) take a song from a quiet, intimate moment to a literal screaming-at-the-top-of-your-lungs crescendo, you’ll find yourself losing your voice singing along on the way to the grocery store.

Little Oblivions is much more rock band-oriented than her two previous albums. There’s a sparseness to her earlier work that has been shed for a more traditional guitar/bass/keyboard/drums setup, all performed by Baker. Baker plays nearly all the instruments on her albums - just like Prince. Baker, 26, has established herself as a true musical force in her 10+ years as a recording artist. She hasn’t hit Billie Eilish levels of popularity, but there’s a sincerity to her music that Eilish lacks, along with a distinct, pleasing absence of pop hooks. In addition to the fantastic song “Faith Healer,” shown in the video above, check out the awesome stop-motion animated video for “Hardline” as well.

Do yourself a favor and get aboard the Julien Baker train. We’ve already left the station, but if you start now you can catch up to us by the next station. All aboard!

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7. Valentine by Snail Mail
8. sketchy. by tUnE-yArDs
9. A Very Lonely Solstice by Fleet Foxes
10. Hey What by Low
11. Local Valley by José González
12. Head of Roses by Flock of Dimes
13. The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows by Damon Albarn
14. Collapsed in Sunbeams by Arlo Parks
15. Loving In Stereo by Jungle
16. Flying Dream 1 by Elbow
17. Screen Violence by Chvrches
18. Blue Weekend by Wolf Alice
19. Mainly Gestalt Pornography by Pearly Gate Music
20. Peace Or Love by Kings of Convenience
21. These 13 by Jimbo Mathus & Andrew Bird
22. Mr. Corman: Season 1 by Nathan Johnson
23. Home Video by Lucy Dacus
24. I’ll Be Your Mirror: A Tribute to The Velvet Underground & Nico by Various Artists
25. Siamese Dream by Fruit Bats
26. NINE by Sault
27. Observatory by Aeon Station
28. The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania by Damien Jurado
29. A Beginner’s Mind by Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine
30. Where the End Begins by Knathan Ryan
31. Private Space by Durand Jones & The Indications

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#3 on the 2020 Bacon Top 31 — Phoebe Bridgers

January 29, 2021 by Royal Stuart

Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers

The “sophomore slump” has been a real and documentable phenomenon. I don’t know how many bands I’ve lost interest in after the excitement of their first album failed to reappear in their second. But apparently Phoebe Bridgers believes the slump to be mere sophistry, as her phenomenal sophomore (see what I did there) album, Punisher, is a noticeable improvement over her very good by any measure 2017 debut album Stranger in the Alps. I’m still kicking myself for having paid attention to that album too late for it to make the 2017 Top 31, but I’m so glad I didn’t miss the boat on Punisher.

The laziest way for me to describe to you Bridgers’ music is via these three words: “female Sufjan Stevens.” Throughout the album, Bridgers undersells the power of her voice, singing at just above a whisper. Her tone is that of a delicate flower, fragrant and beautiful. But like Stevens at his best, she punctures that quietness in calculated bursts, wielding her power like a dagger hidden in an ankle holster. The production of her music places the mic close to the fingers on her guitar, so you hear every movement and pluck, and filled out with key strings and slide guitars and ever-so-perfect digital wisps layered on top. It’s lush, a valley of cool breezes and wildflowers.

It’s the stark changes, however, that truly remind me of Sufjan. “ICU” is a loud, digitally-infused rock song about breaking up with her boyfriend. “Now I can’t even get you to play the drums, ’Cause I don’t know what I want until I fuck it up.” He remains the drummer in her band, despite the scenes described in the song. “I Know the End,” my favorite song on the album, starts out simply enough, quietly describing the depression that comes from constant touring. But then it builds, and builds some more, in a Sufjan-esque way, to a beautiful cacophony of screams and noise. The song ends with Bridgers endearingly mimicking the sound of a stadium crowd screaming.

Even though she’s only been in the music business since around 2014, she’s worked with and performed with a crazy amount of top artists you know. She joined forces with Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus to form Boygenius, who released an EP in 2018. And then she and Conor Oberst released an album as Better Obvlivion Community Center in 2019, all three of whom appear at various points on Punisher as well. She has performed many times with Matt Berninger and The National, most recently in 2020 when she appeared in Zach Galifianakis’s feature length movie “Between Two Ferns” as the lead singer of the fake band Phoebe Bridgers and The Spiders from Bars, with Berninger and two members of The Walkmen as the Spiders.

Bridgers, whose middle name is Lucille (which I love), was 25 when Punisher came out on June 18, a day early, like so many other albums that were released early in response to the global unrest caused by the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. She is politically outspoken and uses her platform to call attention to causes she believes in, and by choosing to release her album early she pushed her fans to donate to racial justice charities and called for the abolition of police. Additionally, she actively campaigned for Biden/Harris, vowing to cover Goo Goo Dolls’ massive hit “Iris” should Trump lose. She recorded the song with Maggie Rogers and released it on November 13.

Bridgers has released a number of great videos from the album. “Savior Complex,” shown above, was directed by Phoebe Waller-Bridge (a favorite of mine – go watch “Fleabag” right now if you haven’t seen it) and stars Paul Mescal (who starred in my favorite show of 2020, “Normal People.” It’s brilliant, go watch it right after you watch “Fleabag.”) “I Know the End” is cryptic, but since it’s my favorite song I’ll give it a pass. “Kyoto” and “Garden Song” were filmed just as the pandemic was taking hold, created in a necessarily lo-fi way.

If you’re like me, you’ve got a lot of catching up to do in the world of Phoebe Bridgers. Don’t sit on it — if she keeps up the rate at which she’s producing music, you’ll be permanently left behind, and we simply can’t have that.

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1. Saint Cloud by Waxahatchee
2. Fetch The Bolt Cutters by Fiona Apple
3. Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers
4. folklore + evermore by Taylor Swift
5. Untitled (Black Is) + Untitled (Rise) by Sault
6. RTJ4 by Run The Jewels
7. Shore by Fleet Foxes
8. Serpentine Prison by Matt Berninger
9. The Ascension by Sufjan Stevens
10. Making a Door Less Open by Car Seat Headrest
11. Dreamland by Glass Animals
12. A Hero’s Death by Fontaines D.C.
13. Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez by Gorillaz
14. Mordechai + Texas Sun EP by Khruangbin
15. Introduction, Presence by Nation of Language
16. Free Love by Sylvan Esso
17. Miss Anthropocene by Grimes
18. 3.15.20 by Childish Gambino
19. Women In Music Pt. III by HAIM
20. The Third Mind by The Third Mind
21. Superstar by Caroline Rose
22. Impossible Weight by Deep Sea Diver
23. We Will Always Love You by The Avalanches
24. Ultra Mono by IDLES
25. Visions of Bodies Being Burned by clipping.
26. Thin Mind by Wolf Parade
27. The Loves of Your Life by Hamilton Leithauser
28. Palo Alto (Live) by Thelonious Monk
29. color theory by Soccer Mommy
30. Fall to Pieces by Tricky
31. Quarantine Casanova by Chromeo

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