By Lake DiStefano
Staff Writer
As the nominations for the 2024 Grammys have recently been announced, there has been a lot of talk about one up-and-coming act that has been nominated in many of the big categories. That group is boygenius, the indie-rock supergroup which released their debut album back in March, which has now been nominated for a total of six Grammy awards.
Their debut album, “the record,” is nominated for Album of the Year, along with Best Engineered Album (non-classical)–which would be awarded to the engineers as opposed to the band themselves–and Best Alternative Album. Their hit single “Not Strong Enough” is up for Record of the Year, Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song. Lastly, a track off their debut album, “Cool About It,” is nominated for Best Alternative Music Performance.
The band is composed of three individual songwriters: Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker. However, it is not just the members of the band which has captivated many, but rather the way in which they go about being a band.
All three of them contribute towards the crafting of their music on all levels. Lyrics, musical arrangements and vocals are all evenly split among the members.
The band has made major waves on both an industry and suburban level because of their collaboration as a supergroup. This is to say that all three members of the band had fanbases and solo careers prior to their collaboration.
Bridgers, for example, had one of her two studio albums out before the band even released their self-titled EP back in 2018. Following the EP, but before boygenius’s debut album, Bridgers released her critically acclaimed sophomore record, “Punisher,” and had already started being an opener on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.
Bridgers is also nominated separately from the band in this year’s nominations for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for her collaboration with SZA, “Ghost in the Macchine.”
Dacus also had three albums out before the band’s debut, “No Burden,” “Historian” and “Home Video,” with tracks like “Night Shift” off of “Historian” garnering acclaim and success for the singer within the indie space.
Baker also had three albums out, “Sprained Ankle,” ‘Turn Out the Lights” and “Little Oblivions,” all of which were lauded within the indie community.
Sonically speaking, their albums are all a far cry from one another, with their separate styles of indie all having specific appeals. Together, however, their voices, lyrics and sounds mesh seemingly seamlessly.
With their respective fanbases all merging in tandem with the formation of the band, it has created a communal colossus entirely built off their collective merit as songwriters. This is to the extent where their solo albums are now being considered within the context of the band and are all gaining listeners that may have originated from another band member’s fanbase.
One can visibly track how their fame, both as artists and as a band, increases simply due their proximity to one another— with the three forming what can only be described as a perfectly symbiotic relationship.
Still, some may point out that the seeds of this partnership have been sowed since their original EP back in 2018. Many fans have noticed that across each member’s latest solo album, released in the timespan between the original EP and “the record,” there has been at least one track that seems to be in conversation with one from the other two.
These tracks are “Graceland Too” off of Bridgers’ last solo album, “Please Stay” off of Dacus’s previous solo record and “Favor” off of Baker’s latest studio album.
The trio of songs seem to depict a collective narrative, with each track lyrically speaking in communion with the others. On top of this, both Baker and Dacus added backing vocals to Bridgers’s “Graceland Too.”
In a similar vein, both Dacus and Bridgers provided backing vocals on Baker’s “Favor,” as well as Bridgers and Baker doing the same for Dacus’s “Please Stay.”
More directly, the three have played the three songs in succession of one another on their tour in support of “the record,” with the order of the performances seemingly being the intended chronological one for the three-part story.
This ability the band members seem to have, where they can build off each other’s artistry and previously established works, is the pulse of their recent success. Their status as a band not only contributes towards the cross-pollination of their listeners, but it also has the added benefit of making their own individual projects more interesting.
As a phenomenon, it is as scary as it is fascinating. However the Recording Academy, it seems, is leaning on the side of being wonderstruck by the three-person spectacle—as evident by the sheer amount of nominations they have received for only their first full record as a group.
