We are truly living through the golden age of sad music.
Ever since Bon Iver made crying in a cabin sexy again, young artists have been tripping over themselves to bare their hearts and spread the Big Sad™ to listeners worldwide. The last decade and a half has seen the woe-is-me musical movement pop up all over, with artists like Drake and Billie Eilish flexing their Feelings all the way to the top of the charts. But the biggest scene for saddies has always been the indie scene.
And no indie musician has been better at making people sadder than Julien Baker.
The Tennessee-based rocker put out her first solo album, Sprained Ankle, in late 2015, following it up with another album in 2017. Baker also was part of the short lived but much loved supergroup Boygenius, and is scheduled to put out her third studio album, Little Oblivions, later this week.
With the new album coming out, and with some serious sadness already evident on the album’s released singles, I think it’s time to take a look back to how we got here.
Now, if you haven’t already, just go and listen to all of Baker’s music. Go ahead. Do it.
Let’s start with Sprained Ankle. First impressions: wow. It’s like crawling into bed into the fetal position, and wrapping yourself in a sweater made of tears. Or, better yet, being body slammed by the Big Sad™ itself.
This album feels heavy. It’s ragged, raw, and totally mind blowing. Baker puts so much emotion into her performances, and it’s mesmerizing to have such energy come out of such seemingly simple compositions. It makes you feel, whether you are ready to or not. As one contributor to this blog has said, this album is pure weaponized depression.
But, after you stop weeping openly, you realize that it’s also just a damn good album. The songs are sparse, yet full of energy and emotion. Baker makes the most of her Fender guitar, with lingering melodies balancing the power of her voice.
Take “Good News” for example. In her ode to insecurity, Baker rambles through the lyrics, stumbling over herself as she describes her struggle to get clean. Baker’s free-associative style employs uneven line breaks – caesura for you nerds out there – that underscore how broken Baker feels. A distorted guitar thrums through the track, mercilessly driving the dirge forward. Yea, it’s sad folks!
Even in the relatively jaunty “Everybody Does” Baker subverts the jangling guitar to deliver the nihilistic acceptance of her own worthlessness – “you’re gonna run / it’s alright, everybody does.” God, even when it looks like your at the bottom, Julien just keeps driving deeper into the Big Sad™.
Things get better in her second album, Turn Out the Lights. Well, not like “feel better” better. Oh no, goodness, it’s still debilitatingly depressing. But with a little more production, some ethereal strings from Camille Faulkner (I met her! At a show once! Very cool!), and some more time to wallow in her feelings, Baker’s second album lives up to all the promise of the first.
Baker’s musical evolution reached apotheosis in the six song boygenius EP released in 2018. Again, if you haven’t listened to anything by Boygenius, go ahead. Do it.
In “Stay Down” – the track that Baker wrote for the group – you can feel her style coming through: a driving guitar, interspersed with some airy strings, and belting vocals. Her sound here feels a little more mature, more put together, but still as electric as her early work.
This is the part of every article about Baker that references her faith. I think it’s awesome that she’s imbued her work with religion, but it is a little weird how every major publication seems to be shocked, shocked I say, to find a Christian person making music that isn’t, you know, bad.
But, as I was saying, it is truly exciting to see one of your favorite artists grow into their new work. And, while it may be weird to be looking forward to being very sad, I still am looking forward to this new album. Like, we may not be getting any Star Killer shred-fests in the near future, but if Little Oblivions continues to build on her already strong foundations, I will be curling up in a ball and bawling along sometime soon.
For The Love 