My Top 100 Albums: #97 - Phoebe Bridgers, ‘Stranger in the Alps’

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97.

Phoebe Bridgers, ‘Stranger in the Alps’

Dead Oceans, 2017

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Phoebe Bridgers’ career may still only be in its embryonic stage, but she has surely already established herself as one of the greatest songwriters of her generation. Catapulted to the forefront of the indie folk scene by the success of the music video for her song Motion Sickness, and bolstered by stints supporting the likes of Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst on tour, Bridgers released her hotly anticipated debut LP in 2017, and has since gone from strength to strength, distinguishing herself as a talented and extremely prolific creator. Combining her early singles with new originals, Stranger in the Alps does not miss a beat and is remarkably coherent for a first release. Pinning down a genre for this record is difficult - Bridgers seamlessly blends pared-back acoustic folk into rhythmically-diverse indie rock into hopeful and groovy indie pop. What sets her lyric-writing apart is not only her openness and willingness to give the listener direct access to her thought processes, even in the darkest of times, but also the ease with which she manipulates the language to her staccato, breathless vocal cadence. The album’s openers, Smoke Signals and Motion Sickness are the aforementioned singles, and these catchy but chilling offerings give the record solid footing before the listener gets hit with Funeral, surely one of the saddest songs ever written, and yet somehow musically buoyant and uplifting. Two more indie rock singles follow before the hauntingly brutal Killer brings us into a more understated but no less impactful second half, the highlight of which being the lyrically exceptional You Missed My Heart, which demonstrates the playful side to Bridgers’ lyric-writing in a song that is dripping with irony. Overall, this album represents just a hint of what the artist seems to be capable of, and even just a few years into her career represents just a small portion of her output, but the strength of the songwriting on show here makes this a record worthy of high praise.

Hidden Highlight: You Missed My Heart

1. Smoke Signals

2. Motion Sickness

3. Funeral

4. Demi Moore

5. Scott Street

6. Killer

7. Georgia

8. Chelsea

9. Would You Rather

10. You Missed My Heart

11. Smoke Signals (Reprise)

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See the full list so far here:

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