Phoebe Bridgers on the “only really truly great voice”
Phoebe Bridgers had a fantastic musical education. Long before she even picked up a guitar and began making a name for herself as one of music’s current favourite makers, the sounds she grew up with certainly helped shape her into the artist she is today, including her fierce love for one singer.
Bridgers’ path to stardom feels paved by the influence of a select cast of idols. It starts back when she was a kid, a time when her first ever concert introduced her to Neil Young as she witnessed the legend in the flesh. Then, as a teenager, her discovery of Elliott Smith changed everything, as she’s never been shy about discussing the incredible impact his music has on her own. Then, into the present, the work of her friends Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker massively shapes her as the three put their talent together for Boygenius.
Another major educational factor was her parents’ record collection and the albums she played at home during her childhood. She remembers having every Neil Young album, a big collection of work from Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits and, crucially, Jackson Browne, which his record For Everyman standing out as a key one in her musical memory.
“I love Jackson Browne, For Everyman was the first record I heard and I wore that out,” she told The Line Of Best Fit. Rediscovering him again as an adult struck her just how impactful his work was. “It’s so sad, it tackles death in this very, not light-hearted way, but this ‘you don’t want us to be sad, but we are’ sort of way. The lyrics are beautiful, the melodies are beautiful, the album is amazing,” she said.
But in particular, it’s Browne’s voice that Bridgers loves most of all. Her love for a lot of other artists, like Smith or Mitchell, comes down to their songwriting and poetry, but when it comes to this artist, it’s simply about the raw talent of his singing voice.
Vocal ability in general doesn’t really do it for Bridgers, it’s not the element of music that matters most or in fact, sometimes a voice that’s ‘too good’ puts her off. But Browne gets away with it as she said, “His voice is one of the only really truly great voices technically that I think doesn’t sound corny, a lot of people with amazing voices get ‘the corny gene’ almost immediately.”
In general, Bridgers loves imperfections in a vocal take. She likes the performance to carry feelings and emotions and connect to the story of the song rather than just sound beautiful. There’s no arguing or denying that the artist herself has a gorgeous voice, but that feeling-first approach is definitely heard in her recordings as her voice is used more like an instrument, whether that be screaming during moments of tension and climax or whispering during her more intimate compositions, it serves a wider purpose rather than just sounding pretty.
That comes from her own thoughts on singing as she continued, “So many people with amazing technical voices are not my favourite singers because they didn’t have to try, and then it’s ‘Where do they go from there?’ They get a vocal affectation and they sound like a fucking elf or they sound like they’re orgasming in their pants whilst they’re delivering some sort of lyric, because they know how fucking good and buttery their voice sounds.”
But Browne never fell into that. To her, he manages to be both emotive and interesting but still sound great. It’s not overthought, as she explained, “With Jackson Browne’s voice, he’s almost throwing away lyrics, he’s so casual with this great voice, and I love it.”
