Phoebe Bridgers | Lost Weekend

I september 2017, Phoebe Bridgers released her debut album, Stranger in the Alps, via the record label Dead Oceans, and the release sent shockwaves through the indie world. The album was showered with praise from leading music media such as Pitchfork, NME, and Rolling Stone, who quickly spotted her unique ability to combine intimate, predominantly acoustic folk elements with heartbreaking and detailed lyrics. The album immediately cemented her as one of the biggest new names on the American music scene, and it laid the foundation for the intimate and atmospheric guitar-driven sound for which she is so well known today.

The Global Sensation and Grammy Rain with Punisher

Where the debut album was a success in indie circles, the successor Punisher from June 2020 broke all boundaries and became a gigantic, global breakthrough. Released amidst the isolation of the coronavirus pandemic, the album's themes of apocalypse, fear, nostalgia, and personal distance struck a collective nerve with listeners worldwide.

Musically, Punisher was far more ambitious, layered, and experimental than its predecessor. From the energetic, brass-driven hit single "Kyoto," which covers complicated family relationships, to the monumental, chaotic, and apocalyptic closing track "I Know the End," the album was declared a masterpiece. It topped numerous lists of the year's absolute best releases and earned Bridgers a total of four Grammy nominations in 2021 – including in the prestigious categories Best New Artist, Best Rock Performance, and Best Alternative Music Album.

Critically Acclaimed Supergroups and Star-studded Collaborations

Alongside her monumental solo career, Phoebe Bridgers is at least as well known for her tireless desire to collaborate across the industry. She is a central part of the popular indie supergroup boygenius (together with fellow generational artists Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus). The trio released a self-titled EP in 2018, and in 2023 they released the massive full-length album the record, which became a gigantic success, topped the charts, and won several Grammy Awards. In addition, in 2019, she formed the duo Better Oblivion Community Center with one of her own great idols, Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes.

Bridgers' vocals and musical sensibility have become one of the most sought-after currencies in modern music, leading to major collaborations with some of the world's absolute biggest stars. She has, among other things, sung a duet with Taylor Swift on the hit "Nothing New" from 'Red (Taylor's Version)', appeared on tracks with SZA ("Ghost in the Machine"), Lorde, and Lana Del Rey, and diligently contributed to releases by The National, The 1975, and Noah Kahan.

To give back to the scene that fostered her, she founded her own record label under Dead Oceans in 2020, called Saddest Factory Records. Here, she acts as a mentor and publisher for a new generation of innovative and boundary-pushing artists such as Muna and Claud, which underscores her enormous significance for the development of the modern music industry.