Ranking every Boygenius solo album

‘Turn Out the Lights’ – Julien Baker

As the slightly unfortunate runt of the pack, it has to be Baker’s sophomore album Turn Out the Lights from 2017, which packs in more droning depression than any real edge. Look, don’t get me wrong, I love a slow song as much as the next person, but how much is too much when you already feel on the edge of obsoletion only halfway through a 40-minute album?

It’s understandable that the whole ‘sad girl indie’ brand is very much the point, but when there’s no light and shade to an album, it becomes very difficult to truly recognise its artistry without feeling like you’re carrying this tome of emotional weight along with it, which eventually just becomes too heavy to bear. This is precisely what happens on Turn Out the Lights because now with the optimistic hints of summer drawing in, it’s hardly the sound of warm sunshiny weather.

‘Home Video’ – Lucy Dacus

Up until the release of Forever Is a Feeling last month, Dacus’ most recent effort to that point of 2021’s Home Video could have left her in a bit of tepid water. To be fair, there’s nothing overtly bad about the album—it was critically acclaimed when it first hit the airwaves—but you can’t shake the feeling that retrospectively, this perhaps wasn’t the singer at her prime.

It’s maybe the continuing influence of Turn Out the Lights pressing heavy on me, but listening to the two records side by side, they do admittedly slightly morph into one. It’s no surprise that Dacus and Baker are now an official item given they are also strong sonic partners, but, on the whole, with Home Video, there’s nothing that wildly stands out. Everything risks blending in to be, with the benefit of hindsight, sadly a bit forgettable.

‘Sprained Ankle’ – Julien Baker

Without wishing a public cancellation from diehard Baker fans, in general, I do not find her sound to be as evocative or emotionally challenging as Dacus’ or Bridgers’. There’s nothing wrong with that in small doses, of course, but when a musician’s entire calling card becomes bogged down in bleating sadness, as a listener you can’t help but hope for something to come along that lightens the load.

Being the oldest record of the lot, released back in 2016, it’s easy to see how Baker began making a name for herself in that moment, because the sound of the album is very much befitting of the tone that existed in the indie pop canon of the time. But as times have moved on and tastes change, the songs become rooted in the era they were made, rather than possessing a quality that blazes to the future.

Historian – Lucy Dacus

Thankfully, this is where things really begin to step up a gear because Dacus’ 2018 effort, Historian, truly represents the manner in which she is a real transcendental reckoning in indie rock, not least in standout single, ‘Night Shift’, which still sounds every bit as supersonic and soaring as it did some seven years ago.

Historian is a pretty warbling record—clocking in at a sizeable 47 minutes—but there’s a cohesiveness and simultaneous edge that Dacus managed to capture through recording the entire album only in the space of a week. In most cases, that’s not exactly an advisable method, but one in this rare occasion gives the album a sense of pace that may have been lost without the urgency. Dacus arguably has stronger suits in albums across the board elsewhere, but with the few standout songs of Historian, you can clearly see the direction in which she was headed.

Strangers in the Alps – Phoebe Bridgers

Having reached the halfway point of the list, it’s finally time to introduce Phoebe Bridgers with her 2017 debut, Strangers in the Alps. Featuring now classic tunes from the singer’s back catalogue including ‘Motion Sickness’ and ‘Scott Street’, there’s definitely flashes of what makes Bridgers a quintessential artist of the times in there, but something about it, compared to her later work, just feels ever so slightly rudimentary.

That may be a bit of an obvious comment given Bridgers had only just turned 23 when the album was released and had signed her first recording contract mere months prior. But, it’s clear that Strangers in the Alps was more about laying the groundwork for a later illustrious career rather than being instantly transcendental from the get-go.

Little Oblivions – Julien Baker

Although it is set to be shortly succeeded by Send a Prayer My Way, until now Little Oblivions from 2021 is Baker’s most recent work—and also her strongest. At long last, there’s a depth to the album where not every single moment is drowning in melancholy, which is rather offset by sections of blazing electrics that set the record alight.

On top of this, what makes the album’s expansive sonics even more impressive is that Baker is responsible for exclusively playing almost all of it, displaying her true wide-ranging top tier musicality in a way that feels full and inspiring but never overwhelming. If this is the road Baker is set to travel on from this point forward, then firmly sign me up, because the genre-spanning ruminations have me finally on board.

Forever Is a Feeling – Lucy Dacus

We have arrived at Dacus’ latest released effort, Forever Is a Feeling, which, as a record only just in the infancy stages of its lifespan, already feels so infinitely fresh but equally timeless through every inch of its 13-track span. Aside from Boygenius, having spent four years away from her own music, it’s no surprise that the album was a labour of love that just palpably hits you as a listener with spine-tingling intensity.

Forever Is a Feeling is as edgy as it is ethereal, soft and melodic as it is punchy and powerful, which, in many ways, is the exact ethos of what the band also embodied in everything they have done till now. If there was any record that comes as the closest comparison to a Boygenius effort, it is this. But without Bridgers and Baker by her side, Dacus is free to take the limelight all to herself.

‘No Burden’ – Lucy Dacus

Creating a fitting circular narrative from the most recent step in the journey right back to the very beginning, Dacus’ debut from 2016, No Burden, ranks second-highest in this list purely due to the fact that the singer came out swinging and certainly cast her indisputable mark on the scene with this album, leaving no illusions that she would only continue to climb as the years wore on.

Tunes like ‘Strange Torpedo’ and ‘Map on a Wall’ just don’t seem like they come from a debut album—there’s a sophistication and ethereality that set Dacus on a path well beyond her years and stage of career. Yet, as much as the acclaim may have come thick and fast, it thankfully hasn’t done her artistic vision any harm, as this was simply the setting off point for even greater ventures to come.

‘Punisher’ – Phoebe Bridgers

There’s a reason Bridgers transformed from a quiet indie cult find to an overnight global mega star with Punisher. With its juxtaposing forces of burrowing introspection and blasting supersonic omniscience, it hit the world at no more appropriate a time for us all to consider our space within it, and where it could potentially be headed in the future.

Released at the height of the pandemic in June 2020, there was a stark humanity which deeply resonated at that time that Bridgers could obviously never have intended but nevertheless pulls off with astonishing force. Punisher is in equal parts breezy but deceptively dark, befitting of every season and mood. From the upbeat peppiness of ‘Kyoto’ to the blissful ease of ‘Saviour Complex’ and the terrifying resonance of ‘I Know the End’, It’s an album which squeezes every possible fit of emotion without ever feeling remotely oversaturated. Thus, it deserves its absolute genius status and the prime position on this list. All that’s left now is for Bridgers to come back for more.