Punisher

A review of the new album Lost Weekend by Phoebe Bridges, one of the most preeminent younger singer-songwriters in America from Pasadena, California, and has been spare with her solo albums.

So we got Stranger in the Alps, in 2017, and Punisher in 2020, and now Lost Weekend in 2026, but it kind of feels like she's been everywhere, but actually quite slow, you know, three albums over 10 years, I've got to be honest, I don't know much about Phoebe Bridges, but when I reviewed the Boy Genius album a couple of years back I said that I thought it was good but one voice and lyrics and songwriting stood out, and I wondered in that review if it was Phoebe Bridges, and I would say that's definitely the case.

The other thing I would say is that modern music criticism is probably an idea with regards to bumping up female pop and R&B and songwriters, solo acts mainly, where often fairly average stuff gets... put as album of the year material and that's been going on for a long time but phoebe bridges is probably the biggest catnip for these people certainly amongst white singers anyway so lost weekend's come out and it's got predictably insane level reviews of a magnitude where you think that people like pitchfork have probably anointed it as their album of the year But I'm always fair.

So let's have a look through.

Why do you sing with an English accent? I guess it's too late to change it now.

Her next record, 2020's Punisher, included tracks like Kyoto, which detailed the strained relationship between her and her father.

You called me from a payphone.

They still got payphones.

To tell me you're getting sober.

You wrote me a letter.

Now she's released Last Weekend, and it's a meditation on a crazy six years in her life, starting the supergroup Boy Genius with Lucy Dacus and Jillian Baker, dating and breaking up with high-profile actors, achieving a new level of fame and notoriety, and losing the same estranged father that she'd sung about on Punisher.

He made it a day in a shirt.

which is like huge.

I mean, of course, you know, we did Punisher.

Drew led the charge last year because that's both one of our favorite albums of all time.

I feel like I need to go retcon and give it.

Okay.

Well, let's get into this, though, because this is a big deal.

So, like we were just talking about, the last solo release from Miss Bridgers came in 2020 with her breakout second studio album, Punisher, which was released at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And it was a huge moment.

So I'm not that Strange in the Alps was too shabby an album either, but something about this one just really resonated with me.

So Phoebe's Punisher from 2021.

I think it's an interesting one really, because it's, There were so many albums in our beloved 90s music, lightly referenced.

But suffered from what I call, what a lot of people refer to really as CD bloat.