Sometimes you need to live with albums to fully appreciate them. Music isn’t always made to connect right away, sometimes you need to let it live and come back to it when you feel ready. Whether it’s a song about something you’ve yet to experience, or a project so specific to a certain mood that it doesn’t click until you’re actually in that mood, music needs to live sometimes. For me, the most recent and prominent example of this is Phoebe Bridgers' Punisher.
The album came out in June of 2020, and I actually reviewed it on this blog way back when it came out. Re-reading now it is kinda funny knowing how I currently feel about this album. To summarize myself 19 months ago, I basically said that I think it’s objectively extremely good, but that outside of a few songs, I’m not sure how much I’ll return to it. Later in the year, I also put it on the list on my favorite 50 projects of 2020, and that description is slightly more positive, basically saying how quite a few more songs had grown on me and how I’ve come to appreciate the sonics a bit more. But neither one of those are close to how I view this album now, which is an amazing body of work!
There’s so much emotion in these 40 minutes that it’s actually mind blowing! Even a year and a half later, I still feel like some songs are going over my head. Songs like the title track and “Halloween” still feel like there are a lot of intricate details to uncover, but finding those details and emotion in many of the other tracks have unlocked this album for me! Of course, the singles “Garden Song” and “Kyoto” are just incredible tracks individually and work on both the surface and deeper level, but the middle of the album became just as amazing after really sitting with it dozens of times.
For example, the song “Chinese Satellite” is one that has now become downright incredible to me due to the writing and intent behind the track! The song is about her wanting to believe in God and religion, but she just can’t make the leap. Lines like, “I want to believe. Instead, I look at the sky and I feel nothing. You know I hate to be alone, I want to be wrong,” and “But you know I’d stand on the corner, embarrassed with a picket sign, if it meant I would see you when I die,” both cut extremely deep, especially because I share the same sentiment. She also uses seemingly random analogies to help make this connection, like the song ending with her waiting to be abducted by aliens (shown on the cover art), or the song starting with her attempting to jog and coming to the conclusion that, “Why would someone do this on purpose when they could go do something else?” The lyrics read both as completely random and straightforward, as well as connecting to the overall theme of the track.
Of course, there’s no getting around the chilling outro “I Know The End”. I have no idea how this song didn’t absolutely floor me on first listen, but now, it’s easily one of the best album closers I’ve ever heard! The song builds up from the traditional pop ballads that are all over this album until a massive, apocalyptic ending filled with existential screaming. When looking at the song and video together, I take at it as Phoebe coming to terms with existence and accepting that she, like all of us, will eventually die. She knows the end. But it’s also a nice little addition that the song ends the album with the same melody the album starts with on “DVD Menu”. So by the time you get to “I Know The End”, the final track on the album, you do know the melody. You, the listener, already know the end, whether you recognize it or not. Just like how Phoebe views death, you already know what it’ll be like. Just like how it is before you’re born, that’s her interpretation of what it’ll be like after you pass away. We already know the end.
Even though that song might be my favorite, the album’s writing as a whole is nothing short of incredible! Whether it’s a song that seems like it’d be lighthearted on the surface, but actually has a deeper meaning, or if she hits you with a devastating one-liner, Phoebe does it all. For an example of each, the song “Kyoto” is about imposter syndrome and other associated problems of being on tour, but it’s also about her abusive father and can read both ways simultaneously. “Moon Song” is full of a million different one-liners about wanting to do anything for her partner, who hates himself, and giving herself the heartbreaking simile, “So I will wait for you the next time you want me, like a dog with a bird at your door.” Equating that imagery to how she feels in the relationship is heartbreaking, but it's something I think we've all been through in some regard, whether it's a relationship, friendship, family, etc. That simile comes back later again in the album during the last song, which is yet another thing that ties the songs on this album together.
Punisher is an album that I think will still only continue to grow on me, even though I now think it’s a masterpiece! Phoebe’s writing and ability to transfer emotion is something special! Even for her live show, she somehow managed to take this intimate, quiet sounding album into something that sounded amazing on an outdoor turf field that was turned into a concert venue. In a way though, I still standby what I wrote way back in June 2020, which is that Phoebe captures the aimlessness and nihilism of this generation better than almost anyone else. At the time, it didn’t connect with me the way someone like Frank Ocean’s music did, but now, this album works for me the exact same way that his music does. It can be a soundtrack to a 3 AM drive, sitting alone in your studio apartment after having anxiety attacks in class, going for an afternoon walk, etc.
This brings me to my last point, which is that I’m sure a big reason this album continues to grow on me is that it’s soundtracking my life for these past couple weeks perfectly. The impending doom that was getting started back at school was weighing heavily on my mind the past couple weeks, and after getting the first week done, the worry feels justified, just like how the song “I Know The End” sounds like impending doom being realized. The redundancy and monotony of classes and school days has lines like the first verse of “ICU” relating even more than before. Even with a bunch of other negative things happening in my personal life that I’m not putting out into the atmosphere, Phoebe still manages to capture every emotion imaginable and somehow makes it relatable. Punisher is an album I hope will stick with me for an extremely long time, and I can only hope that Phoebe continues to put out music this emotionally potent.
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