i ******* love this, and i have been a HUGE phoebe hater

i still think she's a shitty person but at least she owns it here, along with absolutely beautiful production, vocals, and songs.

I ******* love Panorama production so much.

i really need time to digest this, i really love it so much but i think it's one of those albums like TTPD that you need to analyse and understand before enjoying it to its best potential

there's so many layers to this album

nearly cried to haunted and as above lmaoo

I just started listening and the outside? Bobby

trying to enjoy some of these songs knowing damn well they're about bo burnham

Best Dressed is basically Bobby part 2.

The intro of Bobby is reused in Best Dressed.

Phenomenal production. What am I even supposed to say about the lyrics? Half-assed, phoned in, ambiguous to the point of meaning nothing? It'd be easier to enjoy this as an instrumental work so I'd have no expectation that the songs are supposed to say or mean anything

56 minutes ago, LoveInStereo said:

Phenomenal production. What am I even supposed to say about the lyrics? Half-assed, phoned in, ambiguous to the point of meaning nothing? It'd be easier to enjoy this as an instrumental work so I'd have no expectation that the songs are supposed to say or mean anything

this is literally what all her music is to me, it sounds beautiful but unfortunately that's all there is to it

this is excellent

lost boys was such a massive turd that it killed any hype I had for the album at first

Jack Antonoff is SO BACK

it's so funny that people are hating this when it's the album i've always wanted from her

What an spectacular listen. It's indeed very diffuse, sonically and lyrically. The production is insanely beautiful and the songs about her dad are heart wrenching. It's an album you truly need to fully digest to taste everything it has to offer. Oh I needed this so bad. Phoebe could write about anything, record it with her phone, throw a whimsical synth over it and I'm sold.

My favorite track and possibly one of my favorite songs ever has to be "As Above". I don't know, it's truly the climax of the album and dangerously close to what I would call the climax of any hearing experience. It got to the point I simply couldn't believe this could exist. Moments like these convince me I was right to keep holding on when I wanted to let myself go a few years ago. "I Know The End" quite literally saved my life and these new songs might aswell aid me just as drastically, even if I don't relate nor understand to whatever she's f*cking singing about.

Whatever happens after, it doesn't matter
You won't have to believe in magic
Leave it to me and I'll make it happen

Phoebe explanation to every track:

The Outside: "It's about my ability to dissociate and how it once protected me, but it can prevent me from feeling my life when I most want to"

Lost Boys: "Is about this character and it keeps reappearing to me as new people. So this song is about 3 different people who all have a lot in common, whether it be addiction issues or self-sabotage - just this general raw nerve relationship with the world, so they are struggling with this big bad feeling and I struggle with my love for them. So the first verse is about my father, the next is about a relationship, and the last is about probably the most important relationship of my life. I love how joyous it is"

Kill Me: "This is one of my favourite song on the album. I loved working/recording it. We had so much fun with the production. My friend Nick Zinnerplays guitar on the end of it and I spend the whole song waiting to hear it. I'm still figuring out what this song is about - and I say this all in all good fun - I don't really love when my lyrics are poured over as really literal. I think my lyrics are getting less literal as time goes on. So you tell me what this song is about - time passing?"

The Governor's Waltz: "this melody has been around forever, my friend Christian sent me a voice memo of him playing it on piano, I would just listen to it and listen to it, and singing over it never felt right. Weirdly one day I sat down to write and the only way that felt right was writing about my life as a fairytale, not so literally. And it's just these same themes of not feeling present for my life. The really spooky thing is I have a lyric about Shelley Duval, it was the first lyric I wrote for the song, then I went to sleep, woke up and she passed away the next day. Rip Shelley."

Bobby: "I tend to write love songs that are soaked in pain and irony and I really didn't want to do it this time because it didn't feel like that. I wanted to write about the feeling of love at first hookup - just your life being totally turned  upside down by someone in a good way. But there are so many great songs like that, like 'There She Goes' or Marry Me, Archie. That it was hard to commit to adding to that legacy. But at the end of the day I just had to be honest. And these feelings - I feel very lucky to have had them. Thank you Bobby!"

Lost Weekend: "This song is about the past, and it's been pointed out to me that every song is about the past. It's about losing touch with the person who knows me best and just feeling lost which is why it's called that. I was in an altered state one morning - when I recorded this I had just finished writing it and I just thew my phone on the Megatron and recorded it, then I took the song into the studio and nothing felt as real as that first voice memo so we just kept it and recorded over it. There's a piece at the end that's a sample by Paul Lansky at the end which is one of my favourite parts of the record because I've loved that piece for a long time"

Haunted: "I was writing in the woods and was having a hard time as I often do when writing. And I was playing this little bluegrass melody for fun and it was so easy to write to. So I kept writing and writing. And I thought maybe I'd change it, or steal from it later but it didn't happen. I liked it as bluegrass and it only felt right to have my two best friends Julien and Lucy sing on it with me. This song is about feeling a little bit miserable, and going on tour with them and feeling so alive and happy. I love them"

Panorama "It's a song very influenced by my love of ambient music. I love the weird genre between ambient music and songwriter music, like grouper or Florist, and I wanted to represent it on the album. It's about death knocking at your door, and you've been waiting for it, so you let it in."

Still Standing: "This song is about my dad, who I miss very much."

Liberty Tree: "About falling in love in a hopeless place - true story. It's this massive mall in Massachusetts called Liberty Tree Mall which is huge on back rooms, liminal space... Internet people love it. I love it. It puts you in a really weird headspace. And we recorded the band live, I love it. It came together really last minute and I love how it turned out. It's one of my favourites on the album."

Never Going Back!: "It is very self explanatory."

Other Plans: "I wrote it at the very end of making this album. I certainly didn't need any more songs - I had a lot. I wrote it very quickly so it just felt like it had to be included. Someone I love gave me an assignment to write a melody with just one note in it, and then I wrote this song very quickly. I recorded it, just me on the cp80 and it just felt kind of magical. I still don't know what it's about... I have a suspicion. I have a little private meaning but it may change. You tell me what it's about."

Lost Parade: "Kind of self explanatory but it includes a lot of melodic motifs from the album. It also sounds a lot like my old music - so just really takes me to the past."

I Can't Wait: "I am very proud of something on this whole album which is there's no melodyne on my voice. I am not anti melodyne I think melodyne is awesome because if you get a great take or live take but it's distractingly off pitch in certain moments it can really save you and the emotionality if the moment. I wanted this album to be really electronic and I just wanted something to cut against that. What's cool about this is, if you haven't noticed, there's a singer who sings almost as much a me on this album. Her name Caroline shaw - she's incredible. And she really sings like her voice is an instrument. And she does this crazy microtonal thing throughout this track that I love - it's one of my favourite parts of the album. This song, is like a little state of the union, just where I was at, at the time. I like it, I think it's sounds really present."

As Above: "It's about the past, present and future being all on top of eachother; and the weird headspace that being on an aeroplane puts you in... because of time travel. It's a theme of not only the album but my life - being on planes because I'm on them all time. It's like the thing they always say about 'you always cry watching movie on a plane'... I think I was watching Hot Tub Time Machine over someone's shoulder and it got me thinking about my life so..."

Lost Weekend (Reprise): "It used to be called Lost Weekend (Relapse) but I thought that was too sinister... But it is about a return to feeling. The feeling from the first 'Lost Weekend' - maybe with some more resolve and contentment. I don't know if you noticed throughout this whole album, but my dad is dead. So instead of kind of a white hot kind of grief, it's more about thinking about what I loved about him and learned form him. And it felt like a good way to end the album. What's really weird, is I recorded a voice memo like I always do at home. There are dogs barking in the background. One of them is mine, of them is the neighbours - just barking at eachother. And I had this whole idea where - the first lost weekend is all a voice memo so it's pretty lo-fi - so I thought at the end we'd do a hi-fi version, in a church with an organ. And I tried it and it just didn't feel right. It felt way more emotional this first take of the first time I sang it. And we snuck the church organ in the end. And it's just me picking up my phone at the end which is how it goes out."

Credits to: https://www.reddit.com/r/phoebebridgers/s/IFJLkVIvSk

Edited August 15Aug 15 by Roger

absolute collapse, pure excellence, she genuinely did that give her her 10s!

I do agree with the user above though, i think a few months out, this album is gonna be even better ala TTPD

never ever doubted Ms. Plebie Britches but she needs to ditch her lesbian sidekicks for good and keep releasing solo music

I'm merely at the beginning of track 4 and I am already absolutely blown away by the production work on the album. It sounds exquisite.

The lyrics feel extremely vague though, most of the time I barely even get the sentiment of the song. So 1) thank you for the big post above where she explains the songs, and 2) please Phoebe make your lyrics just the tiniest bit more clear.

EDIT: just finished the album. It definitely is one of the very best albums released this year. Randomly the song that got me the most is As Above. Absolutely amazing.

Edited August 15Aug 15 by Incandescent Glow

First listen I wasn't very hooked but I'm so obsessed with every single track on here after a few listens. I started looking at the song credits and it's no wonder that I see so many stellar indie musicians from the 2000s till now contributing to this gem of an album.

I don't think it's even about the lyrics, at least for me. It's just the way she's delivering them. Why are there no hooks or melodies? Her vocal delivery is practically nonexistent; every single song uses the same vocal line with almost the same top melody (except when she's screaming a bit, which is honestly refreshing). And I get that this is a deliberate choice to step away from traditional song structure, but why is she suddenly so allergic to giving buildup, continuation, and climaxes to her tracks? So many of them end abruptly and switch up with no payoff or justification in sight. It's such a frustrating album because the instrumentation overall is actually pretty cool and interesting.

Edited August 15Aug 15 by Antisocialites

Absolutely love this on first listen.

Over 80k for the early prediction is amazing numbers.

How are some of you not loving this? The production is stellar, her delivery is emotionally resonant as always, and the lyrics are heavy and gutting at parts. Being the same age as Phoebe and thinking about my own family this is a very closely hitting album. Kill Me is probably my #1 song of the year

Haunted is the one that got me.