Phoebe Bridgers IS the Next Bob Dylan: ‘Punisher’ Review
By Erin Christie
PC: Daria Kobayashi Ritch (for i-D)
Phoebe Bridgers is the type of artist I’ll want to introduce to my future children when I tell them about the greatest music of my youth. She’s the type of artist I want to scream about from the rooftops.
In a recent interview with The Guardian, Bridgers recalled being 12 or 13 and feeling as though she was the “next Bob Dylan.” At least to me, I think she’s well on her way. Her sophomore release, Punisher (released June 18—a day early!—via Dead Oceans), only solidifies that fact further.
Punisher ultimately returns to the healing quality of her previous release, Stranger in the Alps (2017), in the sense that it’s just as raw. It’s almost impossible to listen and not develop a lump in the back of your throat or a number of butterflies flitting around your stomach. And the thing is, Bridgers isn’t new to conjuring an emotive response from her listeners; rather, she’s a pro.
At the time her debut album came out, Bridgers (then 21), was relatively unknown, having yet to achieve the almost overnight stardom she would later find (cemented with her recent positions touring with indie heavyweights such as The National and The 1975). As the world gradually caught on to her greatness, Bridgers became parallel with her alt singer-songwriter counterparts. However, in some ways (at least to me), she goes miles above the rest, partly due to her sense of humanity and closeness—emphasized, too, by her social media presence, whether through self-deprecating quips or effective use of memes.
She isn’t some kind of untouchable prophet, spouting diatribes from a far-away fortress of solitude, nor is she completely closed off and untouchable. Rather, she speaks directly from the heart, as if she’s letting her audience shuffle and dig through her personal collection of memories and emotions. With that sense of transparency in mind, this helps her material leave an even stronger impact—it’s one thing to relate to an artist’s words, but it means so much more when you feel as though said artist is actually speaking to you, too.
Like countless other angsty young women, I’ve spent many evenings with my head buried under a pile of blankets, drowning out any outside sounds with classic Bridgers tracks such as “You Missed My Heart” and “Smoke Signals,” namely due to how emotionally striking and razor-sharp said tracks are. With Punisher added to her repertoire, I easily have another handful of tracks to cycle through whilst engaging in this same activity. For that, I’m beyond grateful.
This week, I spent a few afternoons just listening through the album’s tracklisting and occasionally taking notes, but ultimately just closing my eyes and internalizing the material. If one thing’s immediately certain about this record, it’s easy to become entranced and enter into a tunnel vision-esque state where nothing but Bridgers’ voice shines through when you listen. That feeling persists throughout.
The record opens on a subtle, somber note with “DVD Menu.” Its instrumentals have a chilling air, signaling to the listener that they are about to bear witness to something that will affect them deeply. It’s fitting, noting just how devastating Punisher really is: think about the feelings that the Top 10 Saddest Movie Deaths Of All Time might provoke, multiply them by ten, and you’ll find the emotive state Punisher encourages.
The record experiments with tenderness and even romance, backed with finger-picking and synthesizers, but also descends into harsher, grungier sounds that accompany darker themes. It goes back and forth; it bends and breaks and puts itself back together again.
However, as the record’s press release states, “To say she writes about heartbreak is to undersell her blue wisdom; to say she writes about pain erases all the strange joy her music emanates.” It’s true—though much of what Bridgers discusses can be classified as heart-wrenching, she accompanies those moments with swelling bursts of strings and triumphant horns, toe-tapping synths and folky riffs, to the point that we can almost forget that she’s relaying the depths of her soul simultaneously. This is evident with single, “Kyoto,” which finds Bridgers attempting to find joy outside of her comfort zone, but still, struggling with a feeling that something’s missing, back-tracked by a sweet, alt-indie melody.
Ultimately, though, much of the record’s tumultuous feeling comes from the fact that Bridgers is examining not only her relationship with the world, but also her relationship with herself, and that makes you, the listener, start to do the same.
“Always surprised by what I’d do for love,” Bridgers admits on track, “Halloween,” aptly summarizing her longing, love-lorn nature that appears throughout the record in one fell swoop. Similarly, her heart shines through with “Punisher,” where we see Bridgers essentially ‘punishing’ herself for obsessing over someone that doesn’t even know her (but in an almost endearing, and definitely relatable way). As she described in an interview with The New Yorker, she wrote the track with the late Elliot Smith in mind, in the sense that she feels as though, if she had has an opportunity to be in his presence, her thoughts would’ve probably appeared like the song describes. It’s as if she’s writing a love letter to this stranger that isn’t really a stranger; an ode to someone that had, has, a great impact on her.
As she continues, though, if she had the chance to meet someone like Smith when he was alive, she wouldn’t have known what to say—where to start or where to stop. They often say that you ‘shouldn’t meet your heroes’ so as to retain the almost idealistic version of them you’ve likely crafted in your head and to avoid what could be an interaction this is undeniably not as great as you’d hoped. Still, she says, “I swear I’m not angry, that’s just my face,” as she would’ve likely explained if face-to-face with Smith in an attempt to secure the conversation’s success. Hearing her croon about theoreticals such as this like this feels like listening to an old friend on the phone, or even my own diary entries about the artists I love. There’s an odd sense of homey-ness in her inflection in the sense that she, too, has a habit of romanticizing the idea of connecting with someone she admires and might overthink every little interaction she would have with them. It’s validating in the sense that even an International star such as Phoebe Bridgers “do be going through it” just as much as the rest of us; that she, too, is human.
When I listened to “Chinese Satellite” for the first time, I was overwhelmed by how much I saw pieces of myself in the material and in Bridgers’ open examination of self, too. “I’ve been running around in circles, pretending to be myself,” she sings when the track opens, and it feels like being hit by a speeding train. From discussing wanting to “go home” in relation to tractor beams and crop circles—maybe she’s staring up to the heavens on the album’s cover to look for her brethren?—to the voices she hears when the night is still and she’s trying to sleep, the track is chock full of existential musings. In a way, much of the song discuss looking for answers outside of what she knows, whether by looking up to the sky, to another, or to those comforting songs she find herself returning to over and over again:
“Drowning out the morning lights with the same three songs over and over / I wish I wrote the words but I didn’t, so I learn the words / Hum along till the feeling’s gone, forever.”
Even if she’s not aware of it, many of her own tracks have served that very purpose for countless individuals (myself included). Take the line, “Crocodile tears / Run the tap til it’s clear,” from “Savior Complex,” for example. This phrase evokes imagery of an evening spent sobbing and then taking a trip to CVS to buy hair dye to satisfy one’s need for control over something. We’ve all been there, and it’s oddly comforting to imagine Bridgers experiencing the same coming-of-age trope.
With songs such as “Moon Song,” too, Bridgers is especially forthcoming. Here, it’s clear that she feels not just with her heart, but with her entire self; she gives everything to the people she cares about. Though the person she addresses definitely hurt her—I mean, they “fought about John Lennon until [she] cried and went to bed upset”—they still have this immovable ability to hold her like “water in [their] hands.” Her care extends to the point that she would even try to get the moon for them if they asked.
“So I’m waiting for the next time you want me like a dog with a bird at your door,” she admits. In moments such as this, if Punisher were a film (like it’s opening track suggests), a lone spotlight would be cast on Bridgers. Here, she’s the story’s heroine, opening up her heart in an emotionally heavy soliloquy. It’s as if she’s hoping that, in her confession, she might be able to finally let go.
With “Graceland Too,” Bridgers is just as exposed, entertaining her idea of self, or possibly her perception of someone she cares deeply about. “Doesn't know what she wants or what she's gonna do / A rebel without a clue,” Bridgers sighs, and it feels as though she’s describing any young person who’s fled to a new environment, seeking recklessness and chaos so as to find themselves and learn to finally love. These words draw images of late nights, bright street lights, puffs of smoke, dirty doc martens, and scuffed knees. In these moments, I feel closest to Bridgers in the sense that her words ring true to my personal experiences. It’s tough to learn to find happiness within yourself, as opposed to your outside environment, and yet, sometimes, all you can do is look outward, especially if you’re in the “big city” and supposedly anything can happen.
That sense of self-discovery (and dependence on validation from outside means) continues with the final act of the film, “I Know The End” (which is honestly one of the greatest tracks I’ve personally ever heard). As it opens, there’s a stark melancholy as Bridgers describes a relationship’s rise and fall, going from watching the sunset on a rusty swingset to eventually fizzling into nothing. She sees herself as the bird in this scenario (calling back to “Moon Song”), but if the roles have reversed and now she’s trapped in the jaws of her partner, a dog that she’s always tempted to call home again whether out of habit, or in the vein of seeking comfort in the familiar.
As the track progresses, though, Bridgers turns her attention away from that relationship, focusing instead, on herself. Here, a distinct shift in tone is kicked into motion. Signified with roaring drums, quickening in pace, her lingering heartbreak is replaced with a feeling of newfound hope at the prospect of no longer being bogged down by her dependency on something “safe” (after all, she’s not trying to hide under the floorboards and succumb to a life lost in her hometown). “I'll find a new place to be from / A haunted house with a picket fence / To float around and ghost my friends,” she describes, and it feels as though she’s finding light in the prospect of change, of being on her own and discovering herself outside of the context of what she’s comfortable with (whether that be her hometown roots, or the demons of relationships past). “No I’m not afraid to disappear,” she states, noting that, as long as she follows her gut and her heart, she’ll be able to tackle whatever the future contains with a strengthened sense of individual worth.
A choral symphony chimes in as the track enters its raucous ending sequence. “The end is near,” the group harmonizes, but it feels less like a sign of dread, and more like acceptance. Bridgers seems sure that this “end” could lead to a new beginning.
The track then crashes into a total mess of brass, strings, and cymbals, combined with an almost gothic choir, backtracking unrelenting screaming from Bridgers (you might remember this video which was likely taken while this portion of the track was recorded). Her screams contains a haunting sort of pain—as if she’s using every last drop of energy she can muster with each howl. This inclusion may be symbolic of the emotional unrest that she’s endured throughout the track’s described journey (and the reaction it’s encouraged), but also, of the emotional release that making a record this heavy must’ve required. With being able to let it all out, she might be able to move on from everything that has made her want to cry out in the first place.
Once her yelling faded into a whisper when I heard this track for the first time, I felt shivers run up and down my spine. As I stared up at the ceiling once silence returned to my earbuds, I sat for a moment and simply pondered what I had just experienced. It immediately made sense that she ended this record on such an explosive note, as this record in its entirety is undoubtedly an explosive body of work; one that’s meant to make you reevaluate your life, what you care about, what you let weigh on your heart, and most of all, how you think about yourself.
So, I then pressed play on “DVD Menu” and started at the beginning all over again. And again.
As is probably evident with this review (or novel), I’ve always had a really soft spot for Phoebe Bridgers. That said, upon learning that I had been sent a copy of her upcoming project to review, I can’t lie; I may have shed a tear or two. And those tears continued to fall sporadically as I delved into Punisher for the very first time a few weeks ago.
Now that Punisher is finally out, I’m sure that much of the general public can relate to the overwhelming sense of love, admiration, devastation, and overall melancholy that this album provokes in me.
On the record’s cover, Bridgers dons a skeleton onesie, representative of the fact that, through Punisher, the metaphorical ‘skeletons in her closet’ have stuck their barren limbs past the door frame for public consumption. Opposing the image on the cover of Stranger in the Alps—where Bridgers (or some unknown individual) is shrouded in a sheet and hardly seen—here, Bridgers is totally exposed. As she sings on “Savior Complex,” Bridgers urges her listener to return the favor, as she’s just showed them this intimate part of herself. In that process of being unafraid to process her emotional turmoil on a public platform, it definitely feels as though I might know her, or at least have a vague idea (which an idea that is vaguely touched on with the track, “Punisher”). Regardless, that’s something that is massively significant to me.
Keep up to date with Phoebe!
PC: Jessica Lehrman (for Rolling Stone)