Video: Better Oblivion Community Center – “Dylan Thomas”
Directed by Michelle Zauner. From Better Oblivion Community Center, out now on Dead Oceans.
This is so good! And when’s the last time Conor Oberst has looked this happy? Phoebe Bridgers clearly brings out the best in him.
This whole album is great. Which shouldn’t surprise anybody. Their collaboration on Bridgers’ “Would You Rather” from 2017’s Stranger In The Alps was awesome. At the time we called it “a self-contained short story” in the guise of “a simple, pretty, acoustic duet.”
This new one’s more rockin’ and it suits them both. Their voices blend remarkably well. It’s funny that Oberst is as good of a harmonizer as he is, considering the fact that he doesn’t have what anybody would consider a traditionally “strong” voice. But hey, that’s rock and roll. One half science, the other half soul.
In other news, Bridgers was a named source in a recent high-profile article about a notoriously creepy douchebag who promised young women help with their music careers only to perv out on them and then get emotionally abusive after they got away. Bridgers wrote a great song about her ordeal (“I hate you for what you did… I faked it every time but that’s alright… Why do you sing with an English accent?”).
Others, unfortunately, stopped making music altogether.
Better Oblivion Community Center: web, twitter, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki.