Each member of Boygenius compared to Crosby, Stills, and Nash
It was one of the greatest tweets in recent memory: after her guitar-smashing performance on Saturday Night Live back in 2021, Phoebe Bridgers briefly became the hot-button topic for every musician to weigh in on. Always one to let loose on Twitter, David Crosby was asked his opinion on Bridgers’ performance, to which he replied: “Pathetic”. It was signature Croz, but Bridgers landed the knockout blow by simply replying “little bitch”, taking down a revered shit-stirrer at his own game.
The generational divide was clear, but the incident only served to further the connection that Bridgers and Crosby had with each other. There was even a round two: Crosby responded to a pro-Union tweet from Joe Biden in 2022 by saying that unions were “useless and totally dishonest”. Simplifying her signature retort even further, Bridgers responded with a simple “bitch” and called it a day.
Sadly, we’ve been robbed of further battles between the two on Twitter due to Crosby’s death in 2023. But perhaps Bridgers and Crosby were so combative with each other because they had too much in common. Even though they were separated in age by more than 50 years, the two seemed to run in parallel to each other in some remarkable ways.
The most obvious is that they were both in the most prominent supergroup of their respective generations: Crosby in Crosby, Stills, and Nash (with occasional fourth member Neil Young) and Bridgers in Boygenius, the indie rock trio she formed with Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus back in 2018. Almost immediately, Boygenius began getting compared to CSN. As a trio of prominent rock musicians who had a penchant for folk and a wealth of songwriting experience to bring to the table, the two groups could harmonise perfectly and command massive audiences. The main difference is that Boygenius actually seem like they genuinely like being around each other, whereas CSN didn’t always get along.
Boygenius decided to lean into the connection with the front cover of their first EP mirroring the album cover of CSN’s self-titled 1969 debut album. Both feature all three members huddled around a couch, with the centre figure of each portrait holding a guitar. At that point, there wasn’t any explicit vinegar between the two parties. In fact, there was almost certainly some love for CSN between the members of Boygenius. That might have changed on a personal level, but each time Boygenius harmonise together, there are traces of CSN coming to the fore.
Based on the Boygenius EP cover, the analogues go like this: Phoebe Bridgers is Graham Nash, Julien Baker is Stephen Stills, and Lucy Dacus is David Crosby. But that’s just based on placement alone – who would be the actual closest resemblance? It’s hard to say since all three members of all three bands have fairly unique identities. That being said, there are some similarities that we can point out.
Let’s start with the easiest: Julien Baker is closest to Stephen Stills. This primarily comes down to their roles in their respective bands as multi-instrumentalists. Stills recorded nearly every instrument on Crosby, Stills, and Nash, minus the drum parts played by Jim Gordon and Dallas Taylor. Baker’s arsenal in Boygenius includes all the standard rock band instruments, plus mandolin and banjo for good measure. Baker and Stills are self-sustaining units that can cross multiple genres with ease while still being team players when the time comes.
Next, let’s go with something that might make a dead man turn over in his grave: Phoebe Bridgers is closest to David Crosby. Apart from their shared combative personalities, Bridgers and Crosby also share a love of wide-open spaces and boundary-pushing lyricism in their music. Bridgers can shock when she talks about sharing medication or wanting to be emaciated, just as Crosby could stir up shit while singing about drug use and threesomes. Neither are shy to speak their mind, but they also share a love of open tunings, wandering chord progressions, and stark lyrical observations. It’s like destiny: they’re practically the same person.
That leaves us with one: Lucy Dacus is closest to Graham Nash. But it’s not just because they’re the only ones left. Both singers have a love of folk music that bleeds into their songwriting. Both have a keen eye for nostalgia in their respective songs, whether it’s Nash celebrating his then-finished relationship with Joni Mitchell in ‘Our House’ or Dacus taking down some donkey-brained ex-partners in ‘Leonard Cohen’ and her solo track ‘Brando’. It’s not a perfect match – Dacus is way more cutting and sarcastic than the eternally optimistic Nash would ever be – but the connection is still there.
With any luck, Bridgers will continue the legacy of an iconoclastic artist who loves to stir the pot now that one of her greatest challengers has passed on. It’s easy to see why she and Crosby didn’t get along – they have too much in common. Once Crosby died, Bridgers inherited some of his responsibilities as a musical agitator of sorts. That might seem strange, but it just goes to show that the parallels between CSN and Boygenius aren’t going to stop any time soon.
