Hello, weekend! Let’s get right to the music review and one of the best albums of 2017.
Disc 1410 is…. Stranger in the Alps
Artist: Phoebe Bridgers
Year of Release: 2017
What’s up with the Cover? This cover is pretty scary, but that’s only because I’m leery around large dogs and that one is looking right at me. There is also a kid painted up as a ghost – a grim and terrible reminder that the pandemic has most assuredly cancelled Hallowe’en this year. Maybe not for the kids, but definitely for the rest of us.
How I Came To Know It: I read a review back in 2017 and checked out the album’s first single, “Motion Sickness”. I was impressed.
How It Stacks Up: I have two Phoebe Bridgers albums and this is #1.
Ratings: 5 stars
“Stranger in the Alps” did not make my best albums of 2017 list, but that’s only because I didn’t know any better at the time. If I could go back it would place no lower than #4, and maybe higher. This record is raw and powerful, and only gets better and better every time I visit it.
“Pop” is a label that is often applied to lighthearted bubble-gum music, but Bridgers proves that pop music structures can also be used to make serious and thoughtful music. “Stranger in the Alps” is confessional and insightful. Bridgers lays her soul bare for us, inviting us to see her at her most vulnerable. This vulnerability becomes the prism through which she shows us the world, unflinching and cold, but also beautiful.
I could spend this entire review just writing about the troubled perfection of “Motion Sickness” but there are plenty of articles on that already. Just Google “Phoebe Bridgers Ryan Adams” and you’ll have the whole sordid (and important) story soon enough. Instead, let me invite you into the deep cuts on “Stranger in the Alps”, since inexplicably the album failed to chart any other song (pop being the ficklest of mediums).
“The Funeral” is one such high point, a stark and painful exploration of an untimely death. Bridgers explores the issue through the prism of her own struggles with depression. This could feel self-serving in lesser hands, but she is keenly aware that no matter how low she gets, somewhere out there “someone’s kid is dead.” It is as cold as comfort can be, and painfully confesses that no matter the depths of someone else’s tragedy, we can only reconcile that grief through our own experience.
The production is ambient, with lots of space for Bridger’s breathy, light vocals to float over the top. The effect is to pull you into the stories, which are the perfect blend of narrative action and emotional exploration.
Musically, the record ranges all over, employing piano, strings and various other effects. These all blend so subtly you don’t notice the individual flourishes so much as the overall effect. When I did notice, it was often a perfectly timed electric guitar lick, infusing just the right amount of sharp edge to warn you that these songs are liable to cut.
While many of the songs feel deeply personal, one of the best is a murder ballad, reworked into Bridgers’ style. “You Missed My Heart” is the story of a man breaking into his ex’s house to murder her new lover, and then attack her:
“I chased her up the stairs and I pinned her to the
ground
And underneath her whimpering I could hear the sirens sound
I rattled off a list of all the things I missed
Like going to the movies with her and the way she kissed me
Driving into downtown Wheeling, showing her off
Backyard barbecues and reunions in the park
I said I missed her skin and when she started laughing
And while I clenched down on her wrist, she said "that's quite a list
But there's one thing you missed
"You missed my heart, you missed my heart
That's quite a list, but what you really missed
You missed my heart, you missed my heart”
Bridgers juxtaposes this tale of woe (the narrator later is killed during a prison escape attempt) with a lullaby of a tune, trapping you in the rosy-coloured world of the killer who sees himself as a romantic until the end. That villain may have missed the heart of his victim, but Bridgers stabs her listeners clean through.
That mix of edge into pop music, aligned with vocals infused with a sad and raw reverie, owes a debt to both Liz Phair and Aimee Mann, while creating a unique sound all its own.
While I’ve talked about two songs in particular here, it was hard to separate out individual moments because of how intricate and cohesive the record fits together as a whole. By the time the final song fades out, you won’t want to go back and listen to your favourites, you’ll want to go back and listen to the whole damned thing. I encourage you to do so.
Best tracks: all tracks but particularly Smoke Signals, Motion Sickness, Funeral, Scott Street, and You Missed My Heart
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