Both Oberst and Bridgers experienced the false pretense of fame and romance in pop music early in their careers. Bridgers, for example, refers to the album cover of her debut Stranger In The Alps on 'Dylan Thomas' ( They say you got to fake it / At least until you make it / That ghost is just a kid in a sheet). Deeper reflections are suspiciously disproved by spontaneous puns and inside jokes. 'My City' shoots wonderfully out of the corner with a joint swipe. The fun of freehand writing radiates from every song. He then tells a whole story around that.” It's like we're initiating some kind of mind fusion.” Bridgers: “It's a fun superpower to present a random thought to Conor. I've never been there myself, but I liked to use my imagination with it. “For example, Phoebe wrote 'Forest Lawn' about a graveyard in Glendale, California where she often hung out with friends as a teenager. “Almost every song is some kind of exchange,” Oberst explains. That friction is what makes the song so touching. The last verse, apparently sung from the perspective of a sound engineer, cuts especially deep: “I was all covered in sound / When you asked me to turn it down / Didn't even think it was loud / Can you hear it now? ” You can imagine a clear situation between the lines: the artist apologizes for the loud sound and thus adopts an insecure and vulnerable position, while the audience is deeply touched. Not exactly a romantic scenario: you imagine a collection of friends and acquaintances of the band, and maybe a handful of curious passers-by. Together they evoke the memory of a concert in a desolate parking lot. The stunning 'Chesapeake' is a good example of this: Bridgers' glazed voice takes the lead, Oberst's signature lament follows her softly. Oberst and Bridgers seem to want to voluntarily hand over the reins in order to turn each song into a kind of loose symbiosis of snapshots and experiences. It's sometimes dangerous to think that music is something you can only make when you're completely manic.”īetter Oblivion Community Center is living proof of that: a pretty tight, heartwarming record with only good songs. Bridgers: “This record is quite a misfire in that regard, haha. “I can't remember by God which of us wrote which lyrics exactly,” Oberst chuckles. And that refreshing, sometimes awkward honesty crops up several times during the writing process between Bridgers and Oberst. The honest answer: the artist often has no clear explanation for how a song is created. Mitski recently tweeted that artists often feel compelled in interviews to make "the creative process" more beautiful than it actually is. “And by the time the record actually comes out, you've had enough of it,” sighs Oberst. “This is going to work, we curate little pieces of your personality and build a brand.” My good friend Lucy Dacus (who co-founded boygenius with Bridgers and Julien Baker) told me that many labels at some point approached her with this same principle. “It was Phoebe's idea,” Oberst reveals, pointing playfully at Bridgers.īridgers: “I think people are too concerned with how you package a record, even before they've even heard the record. The word-of-mouth campaign surrounding Better Oblivion also slyly manipulates this sentiment: attentive fans could already grab the album a few months before its official release by filling out the survey. The feeling that a record has been made especially for you – the listener – is rare. Bridgers: “We kind of see through the cliché that you have to learn to love yourself before you can love someone.” To underline that wink again: the project was announced under the guise of a prosaic self-help brochure with helpline. If Better Oblivion Community Center were a real place on earth, you wouldn't go there to understand the big questions of life. The LP of the same name by the songwriters duo has ten excellent alt-folk songs with a tragicomic wink. Joe Goddard states that "It has the feeling liveness and excitement".Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock already shouted it loudly in 1988: “It takes two.” 31 years later, you can easily apply this saying to Better Oblivion Community Center, the new band of Conor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers.
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