Better Oblivion Community Center

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a b c d Sodomsky, Sam (January 25, 2019). "Better Oblivion Community Center: Better Oblivion Community Center Album Review". Pitchfork . Retrieved January 25, 2019. Phoebe Bridgers – vocals (1–10), guitar (1–4, 6–8), electric piano (2), baritone guitar (9, 10); production, photography Right, and so you guys would show up and guest at shows. And you’re on Phoebe’s song “Would You Rather”. So really early on you started collaborating on music, right? That was kind of an immediate spark, this instinct to perform and sing together. And your voices, they really compliment one another. There’s something really special about when you duet. Particularly when you sing in unison, it really works. Phoebe, you have a really sweet, crystal clear voice and Conor, yours is more world weary and raspy, so there’s something really striking about them together. I guess my last question is do you think this is a one off or do you think there will be more Better Oblivion Community Center albums to follow? It’s got a sort of grunge vibe. Did you know that in dream analysis the color yellow is symbolic of intellect, energy, agility, happiness, harmony, and wisdom?

Conor Oberst – vocals (1–10), guitar (1, 2, 4, 7–9), baritone guitar (3), piano (4, 10), keyboards (5), Whirly tube (7); production, photography Official Independent Albums Chart Top 50 - 1 March 2019". Official Charts Company . Retrieved 15 April 2022. So then you guys would guest at each others shows, right? And Conor, you were spending a lot of time in Los Angeles around this time. Cuz you’ve been in Omaha mostly the past few years but you have a spot in LA, on the West Side.

You’re going to tour this record in March and April. You’re putting a band together for it now, right? Right, yeah. That’s true, “gravity” is a perfect word for it. And you know, I say ‘in unison’, it’s from the Latin. It means, literally, ‘one sound’ but when you guys sing together it’s really not, it’s incredibly rich because you get both these different emotions from the exact same lyrics. The sort of clear eyed optimistic sound of Phoebe’s vocal and then the more seasoned sound of Conor’s. For Bridgers, this was essentially square one. Her songs, hushed and patient, often seek in-the-moment honesty over retrospective wisdom. She’s equally adept at capturing an omnipresent fog of melancholy and the cosmic joke looming just outside our periphery. Her debut was filled with odes to friends who died too young and woeful retellings of her stoned, late-night regrets, all sung with a lightness that made her worldview seem both chaotic and consoling. Late in the album, she invited Oberst to sing on a ballad called “Would You Rather.” Voicing the troubled family member who helped make Bridgers’ childhood survivable, he echoed her fluttering whisper in a low, empathetic wheeze: “I’m a can on a string/You’re on the end.” I wanted to talk about “Dylan Thomas” cuz that’s the first single, right? It’s the first single and the last song you wrote for the album. There’s a lot of death and ghosts on the album, and mentions of illness and feeling unwell and being anxious - and those are things you’ve both written about a lot - which is partly why this collaboration works so well. Dylan Thomas, we all know, is the esteemed Welsh poet who died in 1953 at the age of 39. He’s mentioned for ‘dying on the barroom floor’ and you know, he was definitely a big drinker. He was drinking at the White Horse in the West Village every night he was in New York before he died. And he fell into a coma at the Chelsea Hotel and died soon after at Saint Vincent’s on 8th Avenue. Did you know that he actually died of emphysema, pneumonia and bronchitis? And that in November 1953, the month he died, over 200 people died in New York City from air pollution? He probably died from smog.

You guys obviously compliment each other vocally, we talked about that, but you also feel an affinity with one another in that you admire each other’s songwriting. And you both generally write alone, right? It’s not your usual thing to write a song with someone else. Hall, Michael James (January 28, 2019). "Better Oblivion Community Center: Better Oblivion Community Center (Dead Oceans) Review". Under the Radar . Retrieved January 30, 2019. Trendell, Andrew (January 27, 2019). "Phoebe Bridgers & Conor Oberst – 'Better Oblivion Community Center' review". NME . Retrieved January 27, 2019.Music critics have spilled a lot of ink over your guys work. I’m not even gonna try. But can you describe each other’s song writing in three words?

Better Oblivion Community Center, the new band from Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst, recently surprise-released their self-titled debut album. They kept their plans under wraps for months as they wrote and recorded in Los Angeles in the summer and fall of 2018. By the tail end of the year rumors were swirling and a mysterious phone number appeared on social media platforms. Fans of both artists began receiving enigmatic brochures in the mail and a bus stop advertising the Better Oblivion Community Center appeared in their hometown of LA. Then, the album appeared, without warning, on streaming services, and within the hour the band were performing, for the very first time, on network television. Phoebe: Yeah, we didn’t know if it would be a single or an EP or what, but we knew we wanted to try writing together and for it to have its own identity with a band name. And some other talented friends, songwriter Christian Lee Hutson on guitar, and Anna Butterss on bass. They both played bass in Phoebe’s touring band at different times, right? How would you compare them as players? The first song you wrote together is the first song on the album, “I Didn’t Know What I Was In For” and at that time you weren’t really thinking it would be a whole album but you knew you wanted it to be its own thing, not a Phoebe Bridgers & Conor Oberst album of acoustic songs? Did you guys ever sit down and talk about themes or how you wanted the album to sound? Did you discuss what kind of songs they’d be or did you just sit down and start writing to see what would happen?Trendell, Andrew (January 29, 2019). "Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst share 'Dylan Thomas' video and announce Better Oblivion Community Center UK and world tour". NME . Retrieved February 22, 2019.