Phoebe Bridgers’s third studio album, Lost Weekend, was released on August 14th, marking her return to solo music after six years. Between her second album, Punisher, and this release, Bridgers toured with her trio boygenius, which is how I became aware of her music. I then saw her open for Taylor Swift on the Eras Tour, and “Scott Street” basically carried me through my high school graduation. I must admit, though, before Lost Weekend, I don’t think I had listened to one of her albums in full more than once.
Despite that, I became completely invested in this new album cycle of hers. I have always had a fascination with the celestial, so when I saw that her album seemed to be visually themed around cosmic events, I was hooked. It also had a very unique album rollout: one random day in May, signs appeared stapled to telephone poles and in the windows of record stores around Roswell, New Mexico, announcing that Bridgers would be playing a show that same night. Phoebe then played a dozen more shows in various US cities, most of which had a folkloric connection to aliens and UFOs. The shows were never announced more than 24 hours in advance, and they were all no phones or devices, no pencil and paper even; Bridgers played many (at the time unreleased) songs from Lost Weekend, so she wanted no leaks whatsoever.
I didn’t attend any of these shows, but I did have a different opportunity to listen to this album before it was released: at a planetarium show! In late July, Bridgers announced that she and fellow artists had created a photography-based planetarium show that would be screened across the country. My hometown was about 30 minutes from one of these locations, and lucky for me, I had already booked tickets to fly home that same week! In that planetarium, I had one of the coolest album-listening experiences ever.
Lost Weekend was played front to back and accompanied by scenes of northern lights reflecting over ice and snow, night skies full of stars stretching and twisting over dark highways, and storm clouds rushing over mountain peaks to the beats of the songs. I really hope Bridgers releases these visuals as lyric videos for each song because, while not inherently related to the content of the work, each one provided the exact right vibe for me to form a deep connection to the album.
Since that experience, I have been listening to Lost Weekend nonstop. While the instrumentals and celestial nature are what originally attracted me to the album, I also appreciate the feelings she grapples with throughout the record. Lost Weekend functions as an exploration of grief on multiple levels: Bridgers’s dad died while she was working on this album, she stopped touring with boygenius, and she broke up with a partner. All of it combines into a powerful reflection on the complicated intricacies of life.
What I love about this album is that Bridgers utilizes a lot of space, lengthening the sentences themselves and including musical interludes like “Lost Parade,” which allows listeners to carry the weight of what she’s saying. This is also why the planetarium worked so well; the vastness of the songs mirrors the vastness of the universe, where we find space for reflection, sadness, and also hopefulness — hope that there’s more out there in the universe than just us, and hope that there’re other people experiencing the same emotions as us too.
My favorites from Lost Weekend are “Kill Me,” “As Above,” and “Still Standing.” I always gravitate towards songs that have a lot of dynamics, which both “Kill Me” and “As Above” employ. “Kill Me” also includes a direct reference to one of my favorite boygenius songs, “Afraid of Heights,” with the lyric “I’ve never been afraid of heights / Now, I don’t wanna live forever / But I don’t wanna die tonight.” As for “Still Standing,” it’s a very emotional song about her complicated relationship with her father, but I still love the melody and the power behind it.
If you get the chance, I would highly recommend this album! Who knows, maybe I’ll go back and listen to more of Phoebe Bridgers’s past albums as a whole.