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Boygenius Is Here to Blunt Whatever Life Throws Our Way
Their Grammy-winning debut album is about finding strength in themselves.
“$20” proves that the soaring Little Oblivions single “Faith Healer” was no fluke, pairing driving riffs with images of desperation and destruction: “Run out of gas, out of time, out of money / You’re doing what you can, just makin’ it run.” What could be a discouraging moment turns on a dime into a sing-along as Bridgers and Dacus swoop in over and underneath Baker’s vocal, ending a song about things breaking down with a roaring round about bumming quick cash off a friend. “Not Strong Enough” weaves effortlessly between one of Bridgers’s finest depictions of the inertia of depression — “Black hole opened in the kitchen / Every clock’s a different time / It would only take the energy to fix it” — a hook from Baker that channels ’90s alt-rock, and a refrain from Lucy (“Always an angel, never a god”) that coyly drops the iconography of faith into a song where three queer women turn the story of an old Sheryl Crow hit inside out. The vocal melodies in the verses of “Cool About It” pull from Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer,” “Revolution 0” references the Beatles, and “Leonard Cohen” paraphrases the late singer-songwriter’s “Anthem” while recounting a trip on which Bridgers accidentally drove the band an hour in the wrong direction after missing their highway exit because they were singing the praises of Iron & Wine’s “The Trapeze Swinger.”
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