"Every song on 'The Record' might not knock you on your ass, but the cumulative effect is really something" - Stereogum points out in their Premature Evaluation of Boygenius' debut album. They probably don't like being called a "supergroup", and certainly, Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus "sound less like three individual solo artists working together, more like one cohesive whole." Pitchfork gave it 8.2 grade, tagged it Best new music saying how each author "amplifies the other’s songwriting, enriches the detail, and heightens the emotion."

Indie-rock supergroup boygenius - the trio of Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus - performed at the baggage claim area at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, upon arriving in the city for their SXSW set, Stereogum reports. In two weeks, they’ll release their debut album 'The Record'.

Phoebe Bridgers has shared her cover of Metallica’s 'Nothing Else Matters', about to be released on the covers album 'The Metallica Blacklist'. Bridgers said - "I feel like my version almost sounds baroque. Literally, James [Hetfield] does all sorts of weird octave jumps and stuff that I can’t do, and I almost have a Billie Eilish approach of right by the microphone, performing it the opposite of them, which was really fun to lean into”.

Phoebe Bridgers’ guitar that she smashed against an amplifier on Saturday Night Live in February, was sold for a shocking $101,500 in a GLAAD auction, Loudwire reports. Bridgers, who identifies as bisexual, was nominated for outstanding breakthrough music artist for Thursday’s GLAAD Music Awards. The winner was the upstart rapper Chika. Bids for the guitar had remained in the low five figures in the days leading up to the auction’s close, but the price went up in a bidding frenzy Sunday, the last day of the auction. Jason Isbell has said the guitar was worth around $85, before it got smashed, which means the price went up 1,200-fold after Bridgers had smashed it.

Vijay Iyer Trio share some groovy piano virtuosity with 'UnEasy'; Paul McCartney seems much younger in a Beck remix of 'Find My Way' - the younger musician got the idea for the mix remembering seeing McCartney dance; supergroup Satanic Planet (featuring members of Slayer, Locust and Planet B) share their first song - a, obviously, satanic industrial electro 'Baphomet'; Mysie shares an R'n'B velvet 'Keep Up With Your Heart'; Luminous Kid shares an emotional same-sex song 'Mountain Crystals’ featuring spoken word by Phoebe Bridgers; U.N.K.L.E. just go dancing on 'If We Don't Make It'.

Phoebe Bridgers smashing her guitar on Saturday Night Live has become a very controversial topic, with one tweet going viral for saying that musician's guitar smash "seemed extra". Bridgers responded by taking on a lighter note retweeting comedian Caleb Hearon's tweet asking "did phoebe's guitar write this". Jason Isbell said - "that was like an 85 dollar guitar she smashed come on guys". Bridgers responded that guitar manufacturer Danelectro was in on it - "I told danelectro I was going to do it and they wished me luck and told me they’re hard to break". Isbell summoned the story up calling it "a salute to both Rock and Roll and fine craftsmanship".

Valerie June has brought her interesting voice from a four-year break with an old-school vibe song 'Call Me a Fool'; we know everything about Japanese post-rockers Mono, but there's just still great in a concert with The Platinum Anniversary Orchestra on 'Meet Us Where the Night Ends'; a sweet story, a sweet song - Charley Hickey shares his Phoebe Bridgers collab 'Ten Feet Tall'; '68 share their punk blues 'The Knife, The Knife, The Knife'; bedroom folk artist Field Medic's 'Chamomile' title says it all; Clark shares ambient/haunting art-pop song 'Small'; Ohtis share 'Schatze', a call and response song and video: fka Twigs shares a pop-rap collab 'Don't Judge Me' with Headie One and Fred Again; Genghis Tron are back after 13 years and a new line-up on psychedelic sludge 'Dream Weapon'; Half Waif shares a rich and dramatic 'Orange Blossoms'.

GQ started a lovely "Happiness Project" where 12 culture-shapers discuss what makes them happy, including songs. Director and musician David Lynch chose 'Song to the Siren' by This Mortal Coil (a Tim Buckley cover) - "Elizabeth Fraser drives me crazy. So many things. There are so many pieces of music, I just burst into tears it's so beautiful". Phoebe Bridgers says it's 'If It Makes You Happy' by Sheryl Crow - "it's like just enough of a guilty pleasure". Roddy Ricch chose Pharrell's 'Happy' - "the fact that Pharrell could make a song like that was crazy".

When she found out she was nominated for Grammy in the best new artist category, Phoebe Bridgers jokingly tweeted that she and Megan Thee Stallion could get swords and fight for the trophy. Actually, as Bridgers told BBC, there's one person who should get the award - "Like, we are not battling. Not that I want to jinx myself here but Megan Thee Stallion is the best new artist, by far". Her song 'Kyoto' is also up for best rock performance, and all the nominees in that category are female for the first time, but - "I don't think it's virtue signalling because I can't think of a male rock album this year that really shook me up". She also told BBC how the making of her last video 'Motion Sickness' with Phoebe Wallace-Bridge changed how she saw fame - "Like, hanging out with the guy who taught me how to drive the tractor was just a blast. It changed my perspective on fame being a curse".

Phoebe Bridgers released a beautiful new video for the song 'Saviour Complex' from her latest album 'Punisher'. It was directed by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, creator of 'Fleabag' comic series. Two Phoebes connected over email while quarantined, after the singer discussed her admiration of the director. 

"I feel like we exist at the behest of other people, but, yeah, I feel like I don't exist" - Phoebe Bridgers said about life in lockdown while talking to her new friend Bettye LaVette, who responded - "isn't it beautiful that we don't exist until the light come off and everybody applauds". Bridgers added - "I feel like my social life is built so heavily into music where I hire all my friends, I tour with my friends, so I don't even know how to exist at home". Listen to the funny conversation of the two ladies for the Talkhouse podcast.

"I think of Metallica as being a pop band. A lot of metal is just metal to be metal - but Metallica write real songs" - Phoebe Bridgers told Rolling Stone in their Musicians on Musicians series, while talking to Metallica's Lars Ulrich. She also said how she thought Motörhead's Lemmy Kilmister was already dead when she heard the news of him passing. Some other bands that she liked - "I have dabbled in the Slayer world. And then, weirdly late for me, I got super into Nine Inch Nails".

Phoebe Bridgers covered Radiohead’s 'Fake Plastic Trees' with the up-and-coming London musician Arlo Parks, in a church, turned out to be just a pretty song; Teyana Taylor released a powerful video for her song 'Still' with images of Black civil rights leaders and victims of police brutality; The Polyphonic Spree released a sugary cover of Rolling Stones' 'She's a Rainbow'.

"Sometimes I think people are too problematic to be cancelled, or not relevant enough to be cancelled. I mean, it wouldn't even make news if he said something racist today, because he went on a racist rant in the 60s or 70s that was very famous" - Phoebe Bridgers told about Eric Clapton in a Double J interview. She added - "I have such an Eric Clapton rant, because I think it's just extremely mediocre music, but also he's a famous racist". Previously, she spoke how "John Lennon beat the [expletive] out of his first wife, and nobody really talks about it. And he was the most fake activism guy ever". But "it’s not true that only people who make [expletive] music like Eric Clapton are problematic. Daniel Johnston wouldn’t have made the music that he did if it weren’t for John Lennon, and he’s definitely the best Beatle. But you can’t deny someone is a bad person because you love their art".

'I Know the End' is the closing song from Phoebe Bridgers' new album 'Punisher', but it sounds, and especially with the new video, it looks more like a transition. The video finds Bridgers in her now-trademark skeleton onesie sunken in a bathtub, running through an empty football stadium, finishing with a kinda strange makeout.

"This time I feel like the songs are wildly better because it’s me as an adult. I’m getting less afraid" - Phoebe Bridgers said in CoS interview about her new album, 'Punisher'. For her second record she made more energetic material - "I think it’s just more fun to play live. That might be something I learned from my collaborations: the more fun a song is to play live, the more I like it over time, whereas I get kind of exhausted playing sad songs over and over and over". Bridgers released the album earlier because - “I’m not pushing the record until things go back to ‘normal’ because I don’t think they should”, as she wrote on Twitter.

“Touring in Europe can fucking suck—sometimes you have to pay to go to the bathroom, and it’s fucking nasty when you get in there, and maybe there’s no food besides sausage for days. But I would be in a van in Europe right now in a heartbeat” - Phoebe Bridgers says in New Yorker interview about her new album 'Punisher' (out in June, no tour yet). She had decided not to delay the release of the album, but still felt weird about putting it out during a global crisis - “Here’s my thing, for your emptiness. It’s very poetic”.

Phoebe Bridgers first recorded 'Kyoto' as a ballad, then changed it into a rawky-folk thing, a good move; Members of Power Trip & Fucked Up formed Masterpiece Machine, shared debut song, a powerful, industrial rock gem 'Rotting Fruit'; Mick Harvey shared 'Turkish Theme', an appropriately titled and melancholic song; 'Gap Tooth' is dancey synth-pop by Best Ex; former The Kills member Alison Mosshart shared her debut solo single 'Rise' - tense, simple rock with an accompanying message - "When the sky is coming down on ya/baby don’t look back/we will rise”; Cindy Lee's 'I Don’t Want To Fall In Love Again' is timeless, haunting, pretty and cold; Gorillaz have impressive guests on their new single 'Aries' - UK dance-pop singer Georgia on drums, and the legendary Joy Division/New Order bassist Peter Hook; Seattle rapper Kateel looks back on his life’s journey in hip-hop banger 'I Aint Forgot'; Manga Saint Hilare goes halfway from grime to pop on 'Not Around', also looking on his younger days; Canadian singer-songwriter Camille Delean shared her graceful and disquieting 'Fault Line'; RnB singer Nylo goes with less-is-more with 'History of Sorry'.

'Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America' by the 1975 and Phoebe Bridgers is just great (and a wee bit closer to what she usually does); 'Keep it Chill! (In the East Vill)' is a witty and thoughtful and hopeful new song by the singer and comic Jeffrey Lewis; instrumental trio GoGo Penguin shared their beautiful and meditative 'Kora'; the indie-star of the moment Waxahatchee covered Caroline Polachek's 'So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings'; Orville Peck released his first Columbia song 'Summertime' about "biding your time and staying hopeful"; Andrew Bird's 'Capital Crimes' touches the issue of giving IQ tests to death row inmates, whose life was spared if they scored below 70; The Tallest Man on Earth beautifully, of course, plays and sings the folk song 'Mole in the Ground'; Purity Ring's 'I Like the Devil' is piano-driven, dark electro-pop with a great video (below); 'Chosen Family' by Rina Sawayama is a grandiose ballad, which is rarely a good direction, but in this case it's a nice, catchy song with an important message; remember rap-metal? - Kool Keith and metal duo Thetan have a new take on it, with dark and slow 'Let's Take a Trip'; Thao and the Get Down Stay Down shared a psychedelic alter-pop song 'Phenom' with a video shot entirely within Zoom; 'Rider' is lush and dramatic, but Skylar Gudasz’s voice would be more than enough to dedicate two minutes for her new song; black metal turned trip hop turned synthpop band Ulver shared their new song 'Little Boy', presumably about the atomic bomb; "the drums and the bassline and the rhodes and the synths and the horns and the strings!!!" - RJD2 said about his new song '20 Grand Palace', and he's right.

The National frontman Matt Berninger is releasing a solo album 'Serpentine', produced and arranged by Booker T. Jones of Memphis soul group Booker T. & the M.G.’s, Rolling Stone reports. The first song out from it is 'Walking on a String', a collaboration with Phoebe Bridgers, which appears in Zach Galifianakis’ Netflix film 'Between Two […]

Tom Waits is turning 70 in December, so women of the world got together (well, not all women, chosen ones), and sang his songs. 'Come On Up To The House: Women Sing Waits' features Phoebe Bridgers, Aimee Mann, Iris Dement, Corinne Bailey Rae, Courtney Marie Andrews, Joseph, Rosanne Cash, Kat Edmonson, Patty Griffin (listen to her […]

Conor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers have a new band together called Better Oblivion Community Center. Their self-titled album with 10 song is out now, and all of the album’s packaging is about a mysterious and satirical wellness retreat. They debuted their new single 'Dylan Thomas' on Colbert (here). Backing band members include Yeah Yeah Yeahs […]