Phoebe Bridgers

Based in Los Angeles, singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers creates indie pop marked by dreamy textures and infectious hooks. Her sharp lyrical insights, hauntingly moving compositions, and strong melodic lines have reached audiences numbering in the millions around the world. She appeared suddenly in 2015, quickly earning widespread critical notice as her early material led to a promising first album before she shifted toward more somber sounds on the 2020 Grammy-nominated release Punisher. Beyond solo efforts, she has partnered with fellow artists to similar or even greater recognition. Those projects include contributions alongside Taylor Swift, SZA, and Muna, as well as a collaboration with Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes that took the name Better Oblivion Community Center. She also united with like-minded songwriters Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker in the supergroup Boygenius, whose 2023 debut full-length The Record brought both chart success and unanimous critical acclaim while earning a Grammy.

Born in Pasadena, California, in 1994, Bridgers picked up guitar and began composing at age 11. During her teenage years she performed regularly throughout Los Angeles while studying at Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. Her first 7-inch, “Killer,” came out in 2015 on Ryan Adams’ Pax AM imprint. Three notable singles—“Smoke Signals,” “Funeral,” and “Motion Sickness”—surfaced in early 2017 ahead of her Dead Oceans debut album Stranger in the Alps, which appeared that September. The following year she expanded her profile further with the Boygenius EP, recorded with Baker and Dacus. By then she had become a critical favorite whose work consistently drew enthusiastic notices. Placements in film and television, repeated visits to NPR’s Tiny Desk series, and occasional team-ups with prominent indie figures followed. In January 2019 she and Oberst surprise-issued a self-titled album under the Better Oblivion Community Center banner. The pair had already shared a track on Stranger in the Alps, yet the new venture deepened their creative rapport. The group made several TV appearances and toured the United States and Europe soon after the album’s arrival.

During 2020 Bridgers announced that her second solo album, Punisher, was finished and would appear later that year. Leading up to its release she issued new material, first the drifting folk number “Garden Song” and then, weeks afterward, “Kyoto.” Punisher arrived in June 2020 on Dead Oceans. Widely praised by critics, the record also marked a commercial breakthrough, reaching charts across North America and Europe while collecting four Grammy nominations that included Best New Artist. A few months later she issued the companion EP Copycat Killer, which featured four tracks from the album newly arranged for strings by conductor and producer Rob Moose. Before the year ended she released another EP, the holiday collection If We Make It Through December. The four-song set mixed traditional and original Christmas-themed material and included appearances by Fiona Apple and Matt Berninger of the National.

In the ensuing months Bridgers maintained visibility through several cover recordings. She contributed a version of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters” to the tribute album The Metallica Blacklist and interpreted “That Funny Feeling” from Bo Burnham’s comedy special Inside. She also tackled Tom Waits’ “Day After Tomorrow,” then introduced the original song “Sidelines” in 2022 for the Hulu series Conversations with Friends. Further standalone releases followed, among them a cover of the Carpenters’ “Goodbye to Love” for the Minions: The Rise of Gru soundtrack and a collaboration with Andrew Bird on the Handsome Family’s “So Much Wine.” In March 2023 Boygenius issued its first full-length studio album, The Record. The set reached number four on the Billboard 200 and supported extensive sold-out performances. That October the group followed with the EP The Rest, drawn from leftover material recorded during the sessions for The Record. Nominated for seven Grammys, The Record ultimately won Best Alternative Music Album as well as Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance for the track “Not Strong Enough.”