Album Review: Lost Weekend

 Phoebe Bridgers pictured for “Lost Weekend” photography rollout [PHOTO CREDIT: OLOF GRIND]

Lost Weekend marks Phoebe Bridgers' highly anticipated return to music after six years from her previous album Punisher, where she broke down grief, isolation, dissociation and healing all in one.

 Phoebe is prominently most known for her role in the “Sad Girl Music” genre and archetype, in addition to her participation in supergroup Boygenius with friends Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus. While Boygenius' most recent album,The Record gives the vibe of alternative and folk, Lost Weekend gives an electronic and moody presence in addition to her previous albums. 

Phoebe’s style has always been comforting in a way that makes the listener question themselves, to sit with themselves in every version that we’re most dissatisfied with. Her production in albums Punisher and Stranger In The Alps are laced with melancholic and emotionally striking chord progressions. This is also seen in covers like “You Missed My Heart” by Mark Kozelek and Jimmy LaVelle, where Phoebe reimagines the dark story about a man who commits murder due to jealousy and dives deeper into obsession and what love does to a broken individual. 

In Punisher, she loosely dissects her relationship with her late father and what it's like to be on both sides of being an invader to those you admire, like one of her greatest inspirations Elliot Smith. Whether it's from a fan’s perspective or from Phoebe herself: She doesn’t want her audience to feel like they can’t talk to her even in the action of hiding away from those who feel seen by her vulnerability. 

On this record, Phoebe stills feels this heavily but now realizes the cost of participating in avoidance has caused her to subconsciously be stuck in a dissociative identity. The opening track “The Outside” immediately dives into her issues with this and the loss of her father, she sings: “One more time for old time’s sake I’ll watch him get carried away.” Accompanied with a distinct vocoder that’s sprinkled throughout the album, Phoebe starts this album with loss and ends with acknowledging that her father won’t come back through reincarnation. 

“Lost Boys”, “Kill Me” and “I Can’t Wait” are some tracks that stood out to me, particularly because they all talk about abandonment. “Lost Boys” is surprisingly the most energetic and ardent track on the album, with longtime collaborators and known producers Jack Antonoff and Ethan Gruska. On “Kill Me”, which convincingly seems like she’s trying to get you to join a cult, erupts at the end with Persian lyrics saying “It is over” or “It is finished.” The song is joined by Cameron Winter, who is also on “I Can't Wait.”

Whether Phoebe addresses the inevitable end to relationships or is looking forward to being free from the public eye and those who are understudies to her, she does it in a way where you can’t help but want to do it with her. On the title track on the album, she bluntly addresses how she’s supposed to be married but ended up calling it off. This is a casual pull back for listeners and herself to the present that Phoebe is actively avoiding. The track ends with this gorgeous medieval instrumentation of mandolin performed by Chris Thile and string arrangement by Rob Moose.  

With intentional pacing and pauses throughout production, it sets up moments of emotion that the listener later feels once realizing Phoebe’s honesty. She does this simultaneously on “Governor’s Waltz,” where she is awaiting her former partner and actor Paul Mescal to leave her because being herself was simply too exhausting. She asks Gracie Abrams, who is now with Mescal, to be herself, despite Phoebe being a huge inspiration in Gracie’s artistry. She ends with “Since she took my place and my bed on that stage I have not lost any sleep” showing that even in the action of replacement, she cannot help but feel relief as her only responsibility now is to just be. 

Lastly, on “Liberty tree,” which isn’t a favorite of mine but is worth noting because it talks about finding love in ordinary places, it samples “Graceland Too” from Punisher, a song apart of the known trilogy about Boygenius’ friendship and hardships. “Still Standing” comes before that and is a realistic perspective on the grief that Phoebe struggles with. 

Phoebe goes further into her difficult relationship with her father and reflects on how throughout her grief, she doesn’t always find it necessary to want him back in her life. This solidifies a perspective of grief that isn’t always touched upon in music and life.  

When reflecting on loss, there’s always the expectation that the individual will be remembered in good faith and that any previous accountability that needed to be taken shouldn’t be questioned. Phoebe recognizes this, but doesn’t hold him to it as she feels that the only thing left to refer to now is her unreliable memory. She resolves that she can choose to go forward and be thankful for what time she did have with him, even if his love wasn’t shown in the best way. “I can’t imagine you dead, But you are everyday" confirms that even when she doesn’t want him again, the daunting reminder of his absence will always be present to reaffirm to her that it's no longer possible to experience him in its entirety. 

As a whole, I was not disappointed with this album at all, and Phoebe’s choice to step away from her audience was a key attribute to that. Disappearing gives no true explanation to the one watching, and only leaves room for interpretation. On this album, Phoebe distinguishes between the two with brutal honesty and being able to live outside of the music that she’s created. Instead of being the performer and taking on an aesthetic or persona that is often thrown onto artists, she became a listener that separated herself from her own personal aesthetic. 

This album created a digital and synthetic world that anyone can get lost in. Phoebe has always been great at identifying feelings that many would typically bury to sustain a relationship or time, and does it in a way that makes her audience feel seen.

 Despite Phoebe’s discography being known both lyrically and sonically for its depressive tone, this is her most healing album to me.The aesthetics accompanying the album are humorous, playful, and most clearly Phoebe to its core. The album cover itself, shot by Olof Grind who is longtime collaborator with Phoebe encapsulates Phoebe in a very digital and translucent sense, barely seen but seen just enough with what most would assume is a bird by her head.

In the music video “I Can’t Wait” is from the perspective of a fly seeing a day in LA invasively watching LA residents, styled as a vintage and colourful music video that even has Phoebe appearing later while holding the fly. Phoebe sings about how two separate versions of herself have always been present in her life, side by side. Now she acknowledges that even in her contradiction, the two will always belong to her in the end. 

In the Lost Boys music video, a humorous perspective on how in the action of abandonment you can still find community, she embarks on a journey in a medieval fantastical sense, riding around on motorbike and spreading her powers everywhere. When performing it live on the Jimmy Fallon show, she performed it with a band of young girls and boys, surrounding the room with adorning energy of seeing Phoebe highlighting such young talent.

Overall, this album is one that I definitely come back to, whether it's noticing certain instruments or lyrics that moved me more than the first time, listening to this album is an experience you need to sit with more than once.

 On her current tour “The Lost Tour,” Phoebe decided to have no phones be prohibited at her concerts. This completely hones in her grief and performance in a way where it shouldn't be filmed, so that it opens a feeling of intimacy between her audience, creating a space where she doesn’t feel that her grief is accessible without permission.

 Lost Weekend is a heartfelt album that creates a space for Phoebe to feel authentically and admirably, and I can only hope to see what she goes on to accomplish beyond Lost Weekend.