Phoebe Bridgers – 2026
★★★★☆
One of the best albums this decade, and a benchmark in folk music (much like the two albums preceding it).
The most admirable quality of this album is its diversity. You have the autotune-heavy tracks, something very similar to Laurie Anderson’s ‘O Superman,’ along with the Lenker-adjacent ‘Other Plans,’ employing the same inflections and choked vocals as the song builds on itself lyrically and instrumentally. You also have the beautiful duet on ‘I Can’t Wait,’ featuring Cameron Winter (which Rolling Stone attempted to play dumb about, but come on, you hear it).
We encounter the same writing style Phoebe has always loved, where she tells a story very bluntly, slowly adding details and building a world within each song. It’s a style impossible for her contemporaries to bite, simply because they can’t match it the way she does. As soon as Lost Boys was out, it was clear Phoebe never abandoned her roots.
Phoebe built a lot of the promo around this album’s opus, ‘As Above.’ The stickers at the listening parties quote it, and it’s clear she knows her outros (or the ends). It’s not as explosively devastating as ‘I Know the End,’ but it does a wonderful job topping off the album and taking one last blow to you as the reprise carries you away.
Again, this is one of the best albums of the decade and a serious contender for my album of the year. It took six years to reach us, but any amount of time is fine if this is the product of that. I was blessed enough to hear this both at the planetarium listening party and the record store listening party, and it was incredible both times. At the planetarium, I found myself tearing up during the first few songs, especially the intro, which is still one of my favorites off this album and for the entire year.
Godspeed, Phoebe.
Favorite Track(s): The Outside, Lost Boys, Kill Me, I Can’t Wait, As Above
Written by Michéal Doran
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