You better know boygenius! The musical supergroup includes beloved indie singer-songwriters Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, who have released two albums together since their formation in 2018. Keep reading for details on boygenius.
Who Are boygenius?
Releasing their self-titled debut album in 2018, the trio aren’t just collaborators, but they’re also super close friends IRL.
“Boygenius” is a reference for overconfident men who are often praised for their every single thought. The cover of their self-titled EP showcases the singers in the same formation as Crosby, Stills, and Nash on their debut album in 1969, while a recent Rolling Stone photoshoot of the singer had them replicating the outlet’s 1994 Nirvana cover.
There is no frontwoman of boygenius, and everyone is encouraged to suggest or veto ideas. “Lifting each other up [is] how we create,” Phoebe told Rolling Stone in January 2023. “We all get to be the lead. We all get the high of each other being in the front, which is so sick and has been the ethos of this band since day one.”
The acclaimed songwriters dropped their second album The Record in March 2023, which they later won three Grammy awards for.
When Was boygenius Created?
Lucy and Julien first met in 2016, while playing a show together in Washington, D.C. “I came into the dressing room and Luce was in there, reading The Portrait of a Lady,” Julien recalled to Rolling Stone. “I was like, ‘We’re gonna be friends.’
From there, Lucy met Phoebe only one month later, and when the trio found out they would be touring together in 2018, they decided to head into the studio. “We set out to make one song, and made six,” Phoebe said. “It was not like falling in love. It was falling in love.”
All of the members of boygenius identify as queer, however, the last thing they want is to be pigeonholed by that identifier — or as the outstanding quality of their music.
“Something that’s been really important to us is to be able to exist like any other band: to make a sick song and have that not be weighted because of all these extraneous identifiers that we work within,” Julien told the outlet. “It would be more effective for a kid to look at photos of the live set or at the album credits and to understand this world is accessible to them than trying to make an explicit statement about [the band having] only queer folks.”
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