In the November 1993 issue of the now defunct women’s magazine “Mademoiselle,” Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic posed for the cover in Dries Van Noten sweaters and Gene Meyer skirts. It was published under the headline “Reaching Nirvana: The grunge gods get in touch with their feminine side.” Almost 30 years later, Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julian Baker (also known as the ‘supergroup’ Boygenius) reenvisioned the photoshoot for the Rolling Stones magazine’s January 2023 issue. The three women are featured wearing similar sweaters and skirts, frowning in front of the same erratic, unconventional background. But does recreating something ‘iconic’ necessarily turn you into icons?
In “the record,” their latest release, boygenius invites us into a world of sensitive detachment chronicled through relatively straightforward songwriting and light instrumentation. The aura of cynicism surrounding their music is not surprising when one considers that alienating their audience is integral to boygenius’ brand. After all, in crafting their image, the group positions itself as a corrective to a media narrative they have built themselves. They are all well-versed in Joan Didion quotes and rock history, both of which they deploy in conversation with an ironic smile; they even namedrop Leonard Cohen in a song just to let him know he sucks a little bit (“And I am not an old man having an existential crisis / At a Buddhist monastery writing horny poetry”). But one should only be allowed to mock the over-canonization of other artists when one is able to stand on their own — which boygenius does not.
To answer the question: an icon should be able to stand on its own, yet one cannot only think of boygenius in a vacuum. To think of boygenius means to think of the Nirvana photoshoot, of Phoebe Bridgers bashing Julian Casablancas for being an industry plant, or again, Bridgers calling David Crosby a “little bitch.” It is hard to think of boygenius and not think of the guitar smashing and the many other manufactured controversies the members have been entailed in. It is particularly hard to think of boygenius and not think of the many infamous quotes that have come out of interviews with the members. The difficulty is particularly more acute when these statements are said as if they were meant to be constantly quoted and tweeted, the internet’s automatic cheering always in mind.
But listening to boygenius is even harder than thinking about them. After all, the supergroup (and the majority of other ‘indie’ acts adjacent to them) are not meant to be listened to as much as they are meant to be consumed. This is why getting through ‘the record’ (spelled in all lowercase, because in their milieu nonchalance is the most valuable cultural currency) felt more like gluttony than listening to music.
Boygenius oversaturates their ‘songwriting’ with cryptic commentary in order to add a layer of gravitas to it that simply isn’t there (“Will you be an anarchist with me? / Sleep in cars and kill the bourgeoisie”). When they sing “Damn, that makes me sad” in “We’re in Love,” it is more convenient to assume it is some sort of ironic meta-commentary instead of admitting it is simply mediocre songwriting.
I could go on and on about the sophistry of boygenius’ songwriting. Lines such as “You say you’re a winter bitch / But summer’s in your blood” from the song “True Blue”feel coercive — are audiences supposed to pretend songwriting drenched in conventional metaphors is good? The same applies to lyrics such as: “Will you be a nihilist with me? (…) Solomon had a point when he wrote Ecclesiastes”: they feel like a cheap trick. Voyeuristically scrutinizing oneself through the lens of self-imposed suffering, philosophical jargon and terminally online jokes is not a successful substitute for sharp or innovative insight.
Most material ‘in the record’ makes an attempt at skin-deep storytelling. The song “Emily, I’m sorry” lacks a clear storyline and its lyrics are amateurishly disjointed, but it feels confessional: online, fans have pieced together that it is dedicated to Emily Bannon, an ex-partner of Bridgers. That knowledge seems to suffice for an audience that is only after the instant gratification that the fulfillment of parasocial relationships grant them. The commodification of the private sphere allows boygenius’ listeners to feel connected to a poorly constructed narrative because they presume they are being allowed to witness real intimacy: the fans know who Emily is already, so they don’t need good songwriting.
Here lies what fundamentally concerns me with boygenius: we, as an audience, are not asked to look beyond the surface-level emotions that girls being sad evoke on us. Why don’t we ask more of female songwriters beyond this self-fetischization? Are we really listening to these songs, or is it all we are looking for an almost pornographic spectacle of female melancholy? It feels suffocating and invasive. It feels tired.
White women performing sadness and self-victimizing has not always been just standardized but encouraged. We have reached the saturation point of exhibitionist despair. From empty declarations and ambiguous tropes that resonate with consumers to staging pseudo-intense emotional events and imposing heartache upon themselves, the band’s strategic authenticity exploits music terminology designed to disguise vague emotion as artistic. There will come a day in which there won’t be any pages of male-dominated narratives for boygenius to rewrite, and without any photoshoots left to recreate and songwriters left to parody, what will be of the group? In the end, it takes more than a photographic tribute to Kurt Cobain to secure a place in music history.
