As listeners, we ache to feel connected with the songs we listen to. Sometimes, they can express feelings that even we don’t know how to, making us realize parts of ourselves that come alive when listening them.
If there is one thing that the Californian singer and songwriter Phoebe Bridgers does well is to write songs that cut deep into our souls, truly speaking to our feelings. And, of course, her new album wouldn’t be different than that.
Dropped this Friday, August 14th, “Lost Weekend” is the third solo career album. After six years away from her solo projects, the singer comes back with a vivid picture of lows and highs of life, embracing grief, love and humorous sentences.
Phoebe’s new album was teased during her intimate tour (also called pop-up shows) in small cities in the United States, famously known for banning phones on it. This is her longest album ever, with 16 tracks that brought not only her best friends from Boygenius, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, in the “Lost Boys” track, but also Jacks Antonoff production collaboration.
“Reviews for Lost Weekend have highlighted the album’s deeply personal subject matter – it discusses the death of Bridgers’ father, and the end of her engagement to actor Paul Mescal – but also Bridgers’ enduringly surreal sense of humour.”, as described by The Guardian.
Like a common theme in Bridger’s albums, “Lost Weekend” brings an extraterrestrial vibe, with an electronic and unsettling sound that evokes emotional turmoil and nostalgia. Not surprisingly, her newest project will be not only launched in the same week as a solar eclipse, but also “Lost Weekend” listening parties will take place in planetariums across North America. Really, the stars have aligned for Phoebe.
“Lost Weekend” feels like an open letter about the art of vanishing by being consumed by grief. Actually, in this album, Phoebe talks a lot about loss and love: losing her dad, a relationship, but being flecked with optimism; all of that intertwined with sarcastic and humorous quotes. It is a painting about the highs and lows of being human, with classic Phoebe Bridger’s lyricism.
In 2020, Phoebe’s album “Punisher” reshaped pop, resonating with the sadness and confusion of pandemic times. However, six years later, her newest project goes in another direction. With organic filigrees and quickie electronic artrock, “Lost Weekend” is trippy, playing with silence and “Bridger’s trademark silvery sound”, as Laura Snapes wrote.
But don’t let yourself be a fool about that: this is her most devastating album ever with lyrics that revolve around personal subject matter with a sense of humor and wrenching writing.
Already by the first track, “The Outside”, we get to know the tone of the album: Phoebe feels like an outsider, as she doesn’t belong here, paralyzed by her father’s death. Bridgers commented that this album was essentially dedicated to her dad, who passed away in 2023. Their relationship was not the best, especially because her parents’ relationship was abusive. In “Still Standing” builds a choral ending, showing how after funeral her feelings are conflicted:
“Sometimes I want you back / But not today,”
Bridger’s dad also appears in “Never Going Back!” as a voice mail record, intertwined with an acoustic guitar. An intimate detail.
Her voice is like an echo that reverberates through the silence, which is something that Phoebe plays with throughout the “Lost Weekend” album. Sometimes, we just hear her breathing, screaming or singing with no soundtrack in the background, just to be surprised by a banjo sound, an intergalactic sound or even a sweet electric piano.
In this album, Phoebe Bridget finds herself fighting with time. After a great loss, she doesn’t want to get old. In “Lost Boys”, she claims that her boys will never grow up just to find out, in “Kill Me”, that they are all getting married and all that she knows is the ending.
Talking about marriage, Phoebe also alludes to her previous relationship with the actor Paul Mescal. In “The Governor’s Waltz”, we follow a ballad of a couple that falls apart, in which one of the sides feels like disappearing and being copied by their ex-partner new love. She also mentioned the fact that she called it off her marriage, ending the self-titled track with a celestial sound that finishes abruptly.
Throughout the album, Phoebe often talks about a guy named “Bobby” (with an entire track with his name) and how this new relationship changed her perspectives and took her out of ‘waiting’ (as described in ‘Bobby’). After all, the singer still finds faith in love, vowing to her loved one that (in “As Above”):
“You won’t have to believe in magic / Leave it to me, and I’ll make it happen.”
To conclude, this album is such a masterpiece with no skips. Phoebe really knows how to immerse the listener into a journey though space, playing with silly sentences and mystical background sounds.
“Lost Weekend” received a 5 stars review by the Rolling Stones and an 8.4 rating by Pitchfork. What a comeback for Phoebe Bridgers!
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This article was edited by Rafaela Navarro
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