Current Events > Stranger in the Alps by Phoebe Bridgers might be a GOAT album for me

(+) Yeah! (+)

To give you a frame of reference, other GOAT-tier albums in my eyes are like Hard Candy by Counting Crows, Plastic Beach by Gorillaz, Growing Pains by Maria Mena and Left and Leaving by The Weakerthans. Nonagon Infinity by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard is right up there too, and I'd definitely give a nod to David Bowie's album Earthlings, but they're in a much different stripe.

I say this because what those first four albums have in common is a deep melancholy vein to it all. Hard Candy has a lot of dolled up summer rock, but songs like Up All Night and American Girls portray a greater vulnerability. Left and Leaving is Canadian indie rock, but it's also about loss, nostalgia and trauma. Plastic Beach is just a masterpiece, but On Melancholy Hill set a standard for the band that they didn't really approach for another 10 years - and Leaving You is one of the most raw breakup albums I've ever heard.

So an album like Stranger in the Alps has a lot to live up to. Even moreso because it was a track off the follow-up, Punisher, that got me into Phoebe Bridgers - Savior Complex, which is this strong, resolute, incredibly fucking sad track.

Stranger in the Alps, on paper, is an album I shouldn't like. I don't like high, perishing indie girl voices - and the album is easy to write off as just that if you listen to 30 seconds of it. What I like about Phoebe Bridgers is that while her voice is high, it's not perishing - it doesn't squeak and fade into nothing, she doesn't do like a slack-jawed baby voice. Even when she sounds fragile, she sounds clear and present, and the sadness of her music is palpable.

And while the album is basically folk-infused indie pop, the image of sadgirl pop, there's such a presence to it that makes it such a compelling listen.

Scott Street is one of those "hey we haven't caught up in a while" songs, a bit like a more mundane Same Old Lang Syne. And the thing about it is that I can take or leave the chorus, and the verses are very straightforward and basic. Where the song captures me is the ending, where after the second chorus, the drums punch it up a bit and this heartbreaking fucking violin kicks in. And the last leg of the song is this stirring violin playing in the background while Phoebe sings "Anyway, don't be a stranger" - and you know it's gonna be a other 5, 7, 12 years before these two characters are going to get in contact again.

There's this sadness to the subject of the song, but that's been done before. What really sells it is this weepy violin-steeped ending that makes it clear this isn't going to be an isolated incident. The subject is universal, which is why I think there have been a decent amount of takes on the topic in the past - but you don't always feel it resonate with your own experiences. I feel like as far as music goes, you can feel the intent of the song through the lyrics, and you can feel the intent of the song through the music. The music on this track resonates in a big way.

Or another one, Funeral - which is notable in that the first two songs felt like they adhered to two different aspects of indie music, with a very breathy sadgirl-pop sort of vibe to begin with followed up by some kinda bland indie rock-inspired follow-up.

The first track, Smoke Signals, is a good opening to Phoebe Bridgers if you can hang on. But Funeral is the song where I think most people would take notice.

Because it's this emotional roadtrip of the narrator singing at a funeral for a kid who was a year older than her. And the prospect of performing at such a heavy event weighs on her, but she remembers that a child - someone's son - is dead.

I'm butchering the narrative, but on this song the music is so pure and to-the-point, and Phoebe's vocals are so strong. They soar through this emotional rollercoaster of the song, cutting through the jangly folk guitar and preening violin. The only way I can describe how this song feels is cohesive and resonant, and it's this song where I think she really leaves her mark.

But what seals this album for me is the last song, Missed My Heart. It's a cover, through I haven't heard the original, and it's a murder ballad.

I got into Nick Cave's album Murder Ballads at the start of this year, and that's a high that's hard to chase. You're looking for these theatrical, macabre tales of death and heartbreak - songs like Stagger Lee and The Curse of Milhaven have bigger dicks than most men do, but they punctuate the track list in between songs like Henry Lee, Where the Wild Roses Grow and The Kindness of Strangers. All of them involve murder, but they often include romance and tragedy tempered by the worst expressions of the human soul. It's a mix of provocative emotional statements, like the deep romanticism of Where the Wild Roses Grow culminating in the male narrator smashing the female narrator's face in with a rock, or the deep, cloying nature of Henry Lee giving way to mocking and cruel statements about the dead characters beloved other, who'll wait forever for him to come home while his body rots at the bottom of a well.

So when you have an entire fucking album of that music, helpfully titled Murder Ballads for your convenience - where are you going to find more of that music?

In my experience? The answer is that you don't. But if you're lucky, you find it anyway.

Missed My Heart is a song where the narrator breaks into their old partner's house and threatens her new man to get him to leave. When he doesn't abide by this, they stab him in the back, and he mocks them for missing his heart until he dies on the kitchen floor.

Then the narrator chases the girl up the stairs and tells them how much they miss being with them, to which the girl responded that overall, they missed her heart the most - see the theme they're establishing? - and then fittingly, the narrator goes to jail for murder, where the song continues for another two verses.

Do you ever listen to a song, and spontaneously imagine whatever the singer is singing about without even meaning to? Like you can think about your own music videos and stuff as you daydream, but does the story of the song ever manifest without you even trying?

Because again - the last verse of this song is incredible, and the only word I have to describe it is "cinematic". It paints such a clear, vivid picture, and the last lines of the song just tie this incredible bow on the whole narrative, it's amazing. I could see a lingering still shot from the environment described in the song, enhanced by cicada chirps and flowing water. The way the song ends is the sonic equivalent of a still shot fading to black at the end of a movie.

With all of that being said - I really dig the vibe of the album altogether. I bitched about the first two songs a little, but I like the first song and the second one isn't objectionable either - it's just not what I came here for. I mentioned sadgirl pop, and I don't mean to disparage the album with that term - I'm interested in sadgirl pop. One of my favorite albums is by a Norweigan pop artist named Maria Mena that detailed the messy end of her marriage - I'd call some of the music on that album sadgirl pop, not in the sense of Lana Del Rey or Mitski but in the sheer emotionality of the subject matter and the music.

I brought sadgirl pop up because I get that that's a vibe that some people have an aversion to. I think Stranger in the Alps is sadgirl pop, but I think to saddle it with that term alone is doing it a disservice - like calling American Idiot an emo punk album at the turn of the millenium or something. When an album is framed as What The Kids Are Listening To, it can take years or decades to be recognised as a GOAT contender.

---

The worst part about the OP is that I didn't get to talk about Demi Moore or The Mountain Goats or anything else. I even had to cut off the last paragraph. So here's the bottom line:

Stranger in the Alps has a strong emotional through-line, I'd argue it's fairly consistent with a handful of weak links, and listening to the whole thing through was a refreshing and validating experience. This might be an album I have to add to my CD collection.

---

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LCcKBcZzGdA

---

Im not reading all that. But I do like that album I just think Punisher was better in almost every way \_()_/

---

MaxEffingBemis posted...

Im not reading all that. But I do like that album I just think Punisher was better in almost every way \_()_/

Punisher is really good too, I like Savior Complex a lot and the title track is great. But there's something about it that doesn't grip me as much.

I think what I prefer about Stranger is how stripped back everything is. Punisher is produced really well, but I find myself tuning out a bit on some of the songs and I didn't have the same reaction to the album as I did for Stranger. I think it comes down to how the albums sound, with Punisher being a more robust, polished project and Stranger feeling a bit more raw.

Punisher does seem to be recognised as the superior album, and I'm not at all saying that it's worse than Stranger - I'm not even saying it's bad. I think if this Phoebe Bridgers thing sticks, I'll move onto Punisher one day and simp for it as hard as I'm simping for Stranger in the Alps.

Like with The Weakerthans, I moved through their albums like The Very Hungry Caterpillar: first I preferred Fallow, then I got sick of it and really took to Left and Leaving. But the next two albums felt too over-produced and lacked the sort of lyricism and sound I appreciated about the band, until I wore out Left and Leaving and moved onto Reconstruction Site. And eventually that got old too, which is when I got into Reunion Tour super hard.

All four albums have their quirks, but they're all really good. It just took a long period of time and fandom for me to let all of it in.

Right now I prefer Stranger in the Alps for a more stripped back, personal feel. I connect and engage with the music a bit more than Punisher as a whole, though Savior Complex is my favorite Phoebe Bridgers song hands down. I don't think this is a permanent preference, and I'll come around in time - but for now, I've gotta spend some time in the Stranger mines until there's nothing left for me to dig up.

---

I only read your first sentence, but props for The Weakerthans. I never hear anyone talk about them. I actually saw a John K Samson show a few years back. Wasn't technically The Weakerthans, but he did plenty of those songs.

---

you listen to better oblivion community center?

---

Freddie_Mercury posted...

you listen to better oblivion community center?

I did. It was okay,but I don't think I'm into Conor Oberst.

---