Album Anniversaries: Phoebe Bridgers’ Haunting, Hopeful ‘Stranger in the Alps,’ Five Years Later

One of the biggest singer-songwriters of the early 2020s released her first record five years ago, and it’s not as sad a record as one might think.

Written by Felix Kalvesmaki

Phoebe Bridgers has made a hell of a name for herself since her first album dropped in 2017. She’s earned four Grammy nominations, played Saturday Night Live, started her own imprint label with Dead Oceans, and featured on a Taylor Swift song. By all accounts, she’s an indie miracle: a troubadour packing venues. It’s not without reason. She spent years perfecting her craft: a delicate, fingerpicking accompanying chill, whispering melodies, while unpacking trauma in a major key. A Phoebe Bridgers chorus is an assassin of an earworm, sleight and subtle but sure to get stuck.

Not much illustrates this better than almighty “Motion Sickness.” Bridgers released one of her most famous songs to tease her first record, the indie-folk feast of baritone guitar and heart-stirring harmony dubbed Stranger in the Alps. Thematically, the song represents the record. The track depicts her relationship with singer-songwriter Ryan Adams with brutal detail. Bridgers eviscerates with her wit here, following a stinger like “I faked it every time” with “Why do you sing in an English accent?” later in the song. If you’re Adams, this must be humiliating. But as a parasocial listener, lines like “You were in a band when I was born” are the ones that truly devastate. In this song and many others, she has a way of making simple observations into conveyer belts for larger truths.

But “Motion Sickness” is an exception to the rule, especially on this record. While exploring trauma is standard Bridgers fare, the presence of winding slide guitars and a persistent drum section make the song feel energetic, even a bit cheery, sometimes “drowning out” the trauma she refers to in a meta way — it was trending on TikTok, anyway. It’s equally expressive songs like “Funeral” in which Bridgers’ morose tone can’t go ignored. “Jesus Christ,” she begins the chorus, “I’m so blue all the time / And that’s just how I feel / always have and always will.” Primarily backed by Bridgers’ acoustic guitar fingerpicking, a few instruments come in to fill in the background, but it’s a hollow, lonesome song.

Bridgers is often labeled as a “sad girl,” alongside her boygenius bandmates Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker. Mitski, Snail Mail, Japanese Breakfast, Clairo, Soccer Mommy, Lana Del Rey, and so on also get clumped into a depressed aesthetic. “"I don't think of myself as a sad person necessarily," Bridgers told to Exclaim. "Whenever I write songs, it's my outlet for a certain feeling. I just don't as often feel compelled to write when I'm not really sad about something, or wanting to sort through something dark." It’s pretty minimizing. But there is a sadness to some of her music — the issue is that sadness is far from what defines it.

“Killer” exemplifies this best. Certainly a somber song, even for Stranger, as it’s one of the few led by a muted piano. The chords are kind, and gentle, and the lyrics bloodsoaked. “Sometimes I think I’m a killer / I scared you in your house / I even scared myself by talkin’ about Dahmer on your couch.” This isn’t necessarily a crier. It’s emotional, touching, and even a bit sad, but this forsaken love story ends with Bridgers proclaiming “I am sick of the chase / But I’m stupid in love / and there’s nothing I can do.” Bridgers’ music certainly sparks emotion, but it isn’t always sadness that wells up. There’s an element of hope to many of her songs, especially in how they close. “Demi Moore” ends with Bridgers proclaiming she’s “got a good feeling / it doesn’t happen very often.” “Scott Street” begs the subject, “Anyway, don’t be a stranger,” making it the de facto title track. (The actual title is from the censored version of “The Big Lebowski.”)

Bridgers can inspire weeping, but she more often inspires a sense of resolution and growth by the end of a song. At the very least, she doesn’t leave you hanging, and her stories usually have some sort of resolution to them. Happy or not, Bridgers survives. The key factor of her music is understanding how to process trauma and unfortunate situations, not the instinctual feeling of sadness these misfortunes drudge up.

But this is assuming sadness is present at all. The very first track off of her very first record is an apocalyptic depiction of romance — the chorus refers to burning trash on a beach as the titular “Smoke Signals” show the subject’s location. There’s still a sobering introspection here, but it’s sandwiched between vignettes of love and partnership, taunting cops in an ‘80s sedan, listening to Mötorhead and The Smiths. “I buried a hatchet, it’s coming up lavender” ranks among Bridgers’ best-ever couplets, and refers to a peaceful end to a stressful endeavor. It’s a beautiful slow burner, and although it’s tender and poignant, it does not necessarily leave the heart blue.

Bridgers has gone on to bigger and better projects than her first record: the boygenius EP with Baker and Dacus and her 2020 followup Punisher come to mind, and she’s developed her own cinematic universe. Separate from her own label (which already includes MUNA), she’s produced two folksier albums for singer-songwriter Christian Lee Hutson, and beyond Swift, featured on a Kid Cudi track, and backed up Lorde on “Solar Power.” Her debut, however, remains a remarkable distillation of her musical gifts, and a fantastic example of songwriting that meditates on trauma with a cool, clever head. As she ascends to higher, snowier peaks of indie-to-mainstream success like Elliott Smith and Bon Iver before her, Bridgers has so far only sustained her upward momentum. And it shows no signs of slowing.