The Record
The three women of Boygenius — Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker — have made alluding to their forebears a hallmark of their band. Witness the cover of their first EP in 2018, when they re-created the casual iconography of the debut album sleeve of a prior supergroup — Crosby, Stills & Nash — or when they posed as Nirvana on a recent Rolling Stone cover. In their first full-length album, prosaically titled “The Record,” the references come fast and furious, in song titles or random lines: the Beatles with “Revolution 0,” Sheryl Crow with “Not Strong Enough,” Virginia Woolf with “Letters to an Old Poet,” Joan Didion and the Cure with scattered borrowings or citations, and last but not least, Leonard Cohen with “Leonard Cohen.”
These fleeting shoutouts come from bona fide super fans, with a sense of humor about culture and about themselves. But the funny thing is, when they’re not playing spot-the-reference, Bridgers, Dacus and Baker are making music so good that it doesn’t seem untoward to elevate them to the same big leagues as their heroes. Individually that’s already the case, with all three among the forefront of 20-something singer- songwriters. But it wasn’t always clear, until “The Record,” how there might be even a fourth sensibility they could bring to bear as a collective.
It would be an insult to these artists’ solo records to say that the whole of Boygenius is greater than the sum of its parts, but the new album feels like you could play it a hundred times and still enjoy decoding how their voices and personas diverge and recombine in ways that are distinctly separate and alchemistic at the same time. Even the presence here of a cheeky song called “Satanist” won’t stop you from considering the holiness of a solid super-trinity.
A handful of the tracks were written solo, and a few more showcase a dominant singer-songwriter before the harmonies kick in, so it’s not as if they’re playing a game of round robin on every tune, although more equally shared songs make for democratic fun when they happen. Each member’s instinctive role is clear: If you hear a song with a strong electric guitar riff that makes you think of the Breeders, as “$20” does — or, gulp, Nirvana, as “Satanist” does — that’s Baker at her cockiest. Conversely, if you hear a voice so pure its owner sounds like she should be playing the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, and writing with a warm heart on her sleeve to match, this would be Dacus. Someone who delivers most of her material in a near whisper but will go screamo for a dramatic climax? That would be Bridgers, of course.
But what gives “The Record” an element of fiber that few other star team-ups have boasted is how the trio write about the power of friendship, as well as respective romantic endeavors. When they harmonize singing “I never thought you’d happen to me” on “Leonard Cohen,” it’s about Boygenius, as pals on a road trip — as opposed to the more fraught affairs described in numbers like Bridgers’ jaw-droppingly blunt “Old Poet.” (Candor doesn’t get much more candid than “When you fell down the stairs, it looked like it hurt and I wasn’t sorry / I should have left you right there with your hostages: my heart and my car keys.”)
In bulk, “The Record” isn’t that much more upbeat than their sadcore solo efforts, and includes heart- shattering lyrics from each; so why is the final effect to make you feel so damn happy? Partly it’s the inclusion of a few mood-lifters about finding true connection, like the Dacus-led ode to a BFF, “True Blue.” But it’s in the album’s most communal (and commercial) tune, “Not Strong Enough” — ostensibly another sad one — that you really get the sense of how delighted three terrific talents are to be bouncing off one another. Listening to that one, it’s like summer arrived three months early … and one of the best albums of 2023 arrived right on time.