The trio known as Boygenius, consisting of artists Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker, has taken 2023 by storm. They released their self-titled EP in 2018 and did not release any more music for five years, each member individually focusing on their own solo careers. On March 31st, 2023, they dropped their first album “The Record,” which received incredibly high praise from music reviewers such as Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and NPR.
Cat Zhang of Pitchfork emphasizes how special the album is, calling it “a subject worthy of a dog-eared literary classic, one that’s passed from friend to friend until the pages come fluttering off the spine.” This high level of positive feedback is no surprise– the trio shines on each track, with incredible harmonies, catchy melodies, and great replay value. The album was so well received that they released another EP titled “The Rest” a couple weeks ago,
“The Rest” consists of four tracks: “Black Hole,” “Afraid of Heights,” “Voyager,” and “Powers.” On Spotify alone the sum of the plays for each individual song is just over 20 million. This is the first year the band has found itself in the mainstream media, and those numbers really demonstrate their growth.
The opening track “Black Hole” is the shortest on the EP, with a time of 2:21. It opens with vocals from Julien Baker, and the melodies from the other two members slowly transition in, until the end when they are all singing together in typical Boygenius fashion. The atmosphere of the song is calm and melancholic, yet the inspiration for the song is more lighthearted. Baker explained at the live in-store performance at Fingerprints that “Lucy had showed [her] a tweet that was a headline that was like, ‘Black Hole Creating Stars,’ instead of just sucking them up and destroying them.” Seeing this natural metaphor, the band knew they had to turn it into poem form, thus creating “Black Hole.”
The second track “Afraid of Heights” is a song sung solely by Lucy Dacus, in which she talks about her fear of heights and a second party daring her to test it. As the song progresses, she compares herself to this person, feeling ashamed for not being as daring as they are. She explains the cognitive dissonance of wanting to branch out more but also maintaining self-preservation, which is shown in lyrics like, “I never rode a motorcycle, I never smoked a cigarette, I wanna live a vibrant life, but I wanna die a boring death.” Many people can relate to this sentiment, and this track truly showcases the strength of the band’s lyricism.
The third track “Voyager” starts with the three humming in harmony and shifts to Phoebe Bridgers singing alone. She is accompanied by a bare guitar plucking in the background. The song carries on the space theme, referring to a picture taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft,where Earth is nothing but a barely visible, pale blue dot. Bridgers explores themes of loneliness and reminiscing about the past, while also comparing it to space. The lyric “Every small step I took was so easy, but I never imagined a dot quite as pale or blue” is both a reference to the aforementioned Voyager 1 picture, but also to the Armstrong quote “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
The fourth and final track “Powers” features all three singers together, while they ponder their origins and why they are the way they are. They compare their lives to those of cliché superhero stories, such as falling into a nuclear reactor or being taken over by aliens. The track is a thought provoking closer, with horns at the end that fade out.
Following their tour, various live performances, and success from their newest album, “The Rest” was a great addition to their very active 2023. For fans of the indie music genre, or anyone who appreciates well-thought out and produced music, Boygenius is a band worth checking out.
