Boygenius Are Back: A Review of Their Three Song Sampler
/If you happen to follow Rolling Stone Magazine on any of their social media platforms, you likely experienced an onslaught of promotional images of the music supergroup “boygenius”, comprised of members Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus. The band was featured on the cover of the magazine in February, and the images that plastered the internet might have been familiar to those who were around in the early nineties, or are otherwise avid fans of the band Nirvana, as boygenius recreated their 1994 Rolling Stone cover and aesthetics of the famed photoshoot.
While many fans viewed the photoshoot as a fun way for boygenius to reinterpret the famous cover, some of the comments on the Rolling Stone’s accounts were negative. One common theme being that many people are still unfamiliar with the band, and with just the one EP under their belt, some felt that their comparison to such a famed band as Nirvana was unjustified. Perhaps many readers do not know who boygenius are either. Well, you’re in luck. The group has just released a three-song sampler in lieu of their first full-length album, “The Record”, and now is the perfect time to start listening to their music.
For some background, the band is democratically constructed without a distinguishable frontwoman, but the most recognisable name of the group may be Phoebe Bridgers, who has permeated the cultural zeitgeist the most significantly. Her dreamy indie-pop songs infused with raw, and often depressing lyricism have resulted in sold-out arena tours around the world, and collaborations with the likes of Taylor Swift, SZA, Paul McCartney, and the 1975.
In 2016, Bridgers befriended artists Julien Baker, an indie-rock musician known for her confessional songs with themes of addiction and religion, and Lucy Dacus, a folk-rocker armed with brutally honest depictions of heartbreak, and who, inevitably, has become a mainstay on Spotify’s “sad girl starter pack” playlist. This friendship resulted in their eponymous EP in 2018, which harmonized their three distinct flavours, and secured them into a “supergroup” status. Now, five years later, the band has reunited. Boygenius are back in town.
The first of their new songs, “$20”, further confirms the group’s nineties alt-rock influences. With its energetic guitar riffs, and imagery of all-night drives, motorcycles, and running out of gas, time, and money, this is the anthem for going on a road trip with your best friends. The track demands you yell along with the Baker’s vocals in unison, and the climax even more so: a satisfying scream from Bridgers, asking “CAN YOU GIVE ME 20 DOLLARS?” Add this song to your summer playlist now, you’ll thank me later.
Boygenius takes a melancholic turn with their second single “Emily I’m Sorry”. As the title suggests, this Bridgers-dominant track is apologetic and directed at a former lover, Emily. The lyricism represents the frantic negotiating that comes with a failed relationship: “Just take me back to Montréal / I'll get a real job, you'll go back to school / We can burn out in the freezing cold / And just get lost”. Dreamy and repentant, this track ultimately weeps over the kind of love that one gets lost in, for better or worse.
Rounding out the sampler is the Dacus-led “True Blue”, a term that can be defined as one who is staunch and faithful, and this is the kind of love that is celebrated in the song: “I remember who I am when I’m with you / Your love is tough, your love is tried and true-blue". With ethereal guitars and harmonies from Baker and Bridgers, the composition evokes a sense of peace. The imagery of heat, sun, and summer, especially in opposition with the cold: “You say you’re a winter b**** / But summers in your blood”, thaws out the melancholy of the previous track and makes this depiction of love even sweeter. Boygenius’ “The Record” is out March 31st.
