If and when you find yourself in need of music that will meet you at the intersection of I love you more than oxygen and I hope you become a ghost in a house that I can burn to the ground and then build and burn again, Phoebe Bridgers will most certainly have something for you.
On “Lost Weekend,” Bridgers’ third full-length solo release and her first major release of original material since wrapping up her work with boygenius, the musician’s name is one of many in the stacked liner notes that include everyone from her partner Bo Burnham (who co-wrote seven of the album’s 16 tracks) and Maya Hawke (co-writer of two tracks) to Jack Antonoff (who produced the album), American Football’s Mike Kinsella, boygenius bandmates Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus and Conor Oberst, who adds harmonica to the song “I Can’t Wait” — but it’s still all her.
While standout tracks “I Can’t Wait,” “Kill Me” and “Haunted” are different in tone than the album’s main single, “Lost Boys,” that’s to be expected on an album that isn’t just about heartbreak or grief or the persistent search for joy, but all of that and more. In this one album, Bridgers not only mourns the loss of her father (who died in 2022) and the end of her highly publicized relationship with Paul Mescal, she sings of the everyday pain and pleasure that comes with just living.
“I have no secrets, only feelings/And I know those go away/There is a difference/Between lying and deciding what not to say,” she sings on “Haunted,” and that just hits so hard, as her songs are known to do and do especially well here, regardless of what mood you need them to help you through, which is the sign of a musical success.
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