#UKULELE SONGS TEN THUMBS TV#

Michael Savio and Rayne Antrim, Paste’s TV and Music internsĮditor’s Note: We’ve included renditions from our Paste Studio sessions for a few of the songs from Bridgers and Baker. That leaves us (remarkably) with 100 songs from some of this generation’s brightest songwriters that, in turn, make you want to dance, scream, hug your best friend and, perhaps, weepily slide down the shower wall. That means none of Better Oblivion Community Center’s catalog will be featured in the list, Baker’s Little Oblivions (Remixes) EP has been disregarded and many of Dacus’ excellent covers, including her rollicking rendition of Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark,” won’t make the cut either.

Some ground rules, for efficiency’s sake: We’ve nixed remixes, covers (with one exception), demos, live versions and collaborative efforts in which the artist is merely featured. And, of course, taste levels differ, and what enamors us to one piece of music over another is about as subjective as what orientates one person to chocolate or vanilla, summer or winter. Yet, while certain songs hover above the rest, some do get lost in the ether when stacked against the whole breadth of their oeuvres. Baker, Bridgers and Dacus don’t really have any clunkers. To celebrate the band’s debut full-length LP, we’re taking a look at each member’s solo catalog and ranking every track from them. Their strength as boygenius lies not just in their ability to congeal together, but in the distinct styles, stories, and craftsmanship they bring to the table.

Baker’s powerhouse voice imbues her songs with a heart-stopping measure of sorrow, wavering between despondence one moment, spiritual emancipation the next Bridgers’ deadpan witticisms and knack for off-kilter arrangements belie her instincts toward gothic imagery and breezy psychedelia Dacus’s sprawling, diaristic odes to self-preservation and self-ascension can be as zealous as they are biting. The trio’s intricate music speaks to a niche audience within a widening culture, both timeless and decidedly au courant they’re too cool to be Sally Rooney characters, yet too idiosyncratic to populate the Top-40 charts.īut each member has a wholly original artistic vision and viewpoint that reverberate throughout their own solo discographies. What do you get when you take three best friends, who just happen to be some of the leading ladies of modern indie rock, and throw them in a recording studio together? Apparently, you are blessed with boygenius (Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus), whose debut EP was named as one of the 50 best supergroup albums of all time in 2020 by us for good reason: The three gel so perfectly, and it seems preordained that they would have teamed up in 2018 to release a batch of six songs to critical acclaim.

Ukulele songs ten thumbs