Day 344: Phoebe Bridgers – Stranger in the Alps

Today is not my day. Not in a dramatic way or anything like that, but I started my workday by spilling a cup of coffee onto my desk and it’s all sort of been downhill from there. I’d like to marinate in feeling a little bit crappy without anything actually being dramatically wrong, so it’s time to finally explore the modern day sad girl music final boss, Phoebe Bridgers.

Album cover courtesy of Dead Oceans

Phoebe Bridgers was born in Pasadena, California in 1994. She started playing guitar at 13 years old and joined various bands when she was in high school, opting not to go to college to focus on her music. She was the bassist for the L.A. post punk group Sloppy Jane, and after getting some money the group being in an Apple commercial, she started recording her debut solo album Strangers in the Alps.

The album was released in 2017 and became an immediate critical success. The name was taken from the TV-friendly edit of The Big Lebowski, where Walter’s line "Do you see what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass?" has been changed to "Do you see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps?" Bridgers chose it as a title because she thought it sounded accidentally poetic.

I love a bit of sad girl music, or at the very least I used to when I was younger – getting into Phoebe Bridgers now felt like a bit of an undertaking, I’m no longer in my sad girl days and more in the headspace of a mentally semi-stable 30-something, so I thought that spending time getting acquainted with the work of Phoebe Bridgers would just ruin my night over nothing, but it’s not as much of a crying album as I thought.

Don’t get me wrong, the writing on the album is occasionally gut-wrenching, especially on “Funeral” and “Motion Sickness”, but it’s not the sort of music that’ll ruin your night, more just something you want to melt into for a little bit before you go on with your day. It definitely sounds like a depression album through and through, but it’s not the kind that feels like it’s contagious – listening to Elliot Smith genuinely ruins my week sometimes, but this isn’t that bad.

But boy can she write, I can see why she’s been the subject of so much hype around her songwriting. The minimalism of the instrumentation and the softness of her voice really puts the words into focus, and it’s insane to think that she released this as her debut solo album as a 22-year-old. Some of the songs were written even earlier, she apparently wrote "Georgia" when she was in high school. You honestly couldn’t tell.

Consider me a fan, I’ve really enjoyed Stranger in the Alps. She’s one of those artists who’s always been someone I think I should listen to, I’m glad that this project finally got me there. The album is a strong 9/10.