As dreamy and witty as she is gloomy, Phoebe Bridgers seems to understand the double-edged sword of being alive.
The indie pop singer-songwriter, who was named our 2020 Artist of the Year in the era of her memorable and thorough Punisher album, has both a sensibility and momentum around her career that feels a bit beyond her years. There have, of course, been variations of the “sad singer-songwriter” throughout the years — Bridgers cites Joni Mitchell as one of her influences — but the font Bridgers herself scrawls in feels like her own, with inspirations like Elliott Smith and Leonard Cohen distilled through a sharp, empathetic 21st century lens.
Following a string of attention-generating singles (“Smoke Signals,” “Funeral,” and “Motion Sickness”), Bridgers had started to find her audience, one that only grew through collaborative work with Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, who all joined forces under the moniker boygenius.
Bridgers’ music can be so personal that asking multiple people to round up their ten favorite tracks would probably result in multiple completely different lists. For the sake of ours, we focused on Bridgers’ solo work, rather than including her collaborations under the umbrella of boygenius. While this is by no means a complete list of songs we love from Phoebe Bridgers, it’s a pretty good place to start.
Take a read through her greatest hits below, and scroll to the end for a playlist of all 10 tracks.
— Mary Siroky
