Album Review // Phoebe Bridgers // Lost Weekend
4.5 / 5 Stars
Some say that patience is a virtue – an opportunity to become greater in the face of adversity. I hark back to this proverb in reference to Phoebe Bridgers' latest album, Lost Weekend. It's been more than six years since the singer-songwriter's sophomore record. However, this time was not spent in isolation. In 2023, she collaborated with contemporaries Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus under the name boygenius to release The Record. Following a lengthy tour, the musician went radio silent, wiping herself from social platforms and the public eye. On Lost Weekend, Phoebe returns rejuvenated and ambitious. Rather than rest on her indie folk laurels, the singer-songwriter experiments with electronica and ambient production, as heard in the vocoder passages on album opener "The Outside," for instance. From there, the album unpacks grief, love, and disillusionment with fame in the greater technological age. At the thematic center of Lost Weekend is the death of Bridgers' father in 2022, the album becoming an outlet for the musician to come to terms with his passing. Bridgers is not alone in this journey, enlisting a village's worth of collaborators, including producer Jack Antonoff, folk artist Alex G, Geese frontman Cameron Winter, and comedian-musician Bo Burnham. On lead single "Lost Boys," Bridgers sings, "This machine is killing me," adapting Woody Guthrie's iconic anti-fascist message for the modern age. With a completely phone-free tour on the horizon, it seems that one of the most compelling contemporary songwriter is ready to step back into the limelight.
