Phoebe Bridgers
“Lost Boys”
Dead Oceans
At some point, it gets hard to just think about the music even if Phoebe Bridgers’s new single is quite the well-produced earworm.
The California artist is lauded as a generational songwriter for Gen Z. I won’t even begin to argue with that. My 20-year-old intern talks about her breathlessly. She’s certainly not alone. As an old man, I like her, too.
As Bridgers gets ready to launch her third album, Lost Weekend, (out Aug. 14 on Dead Oceans) it is a major affair — so major that the music feels like a secondary affair.
First, there were the small shows at tiny venues across the U.S. where no phones were allowed and a bevy of clues were leaked out to eager fans. And then, with just about a day’s notice, she sold out Madison Square Garden. After that, Bridgers snapped her fingers and sold out a full arena tour in the U.S. and overseas. That’s an astonishing 500,000 tickets in just a few hours.
Even the release of the lead single, “Lost Boys,” comes with its own merch line, limited edition 7-inch, and a lot of other swag — or “ways to interact with the artist” if you’re less cynical than I am.
And when you finally do get to the music itself, it’s quite a lovely track. It’s Bridgers at her most anthemic, taking the tiny bedroom moments of her previous releases and amping them up for that run of sold-out arenas later this year. You’ll be able to sing “Lost Boys” at the top of your lungs if you were lucky enough to get a ticket.
Super producer Jack Antonoff gives “Lost Boys” a hell of a lot of space to build and echo through the room. The result is a track that feels massive, has a nifty little brass section that gives it big time pomp-and-circumstance, and the lyrics are vague enough that anyone can shove their life experiences inside of them and cosplay as Bridgers herself.
If you’re not into Bridgers’ music, it’s going to be a long year for you. She’ll be everywhere, and you might take the route of simply rejecting what’s popular.
But if you can get over the hype machine, you’ll find that Bridgers is in fact writing some of her strongest material and is an artist who still hasn’t missed across three albums. “Lost Boys” proves that she’s not about to take a musical misstep anytime soon.
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