Pitchfork Best New Track: ‘$20’ by boygenius

The supergroup announces its long-awaited return with a three-song sampler.

There it was, in the middle of the Coachella poster, an epiphanic promise of return: Boygenius. Nearly five years ago Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker announced they were joining forces, with a wry moniker sending up the male ego and a suite of pearlescent, harmony-rich songs that felt like an indie-rock triumph. It was a feat of logistics—competing obligations gave them only four days to write and record—and since then the three singer-songwriters have only seemed more pressed for time. Each has released and toured a solo album; Bridgers ascended to big-ticket collaborations with Taylor Swift, SZA, and the 1975, becoming a label owner and fodder for the DeuxMoi rumor mill; Baker toured with Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen, launching speculation of another supergroup. That the trio is now preparing to release their debut album, The Record, in March seems nothing short of a miracle—proof of the storybook truism that no matter how much your paths diverge, the roads always lead back to friendship.

Scheduling conflicts are still real though, and the songs released today—“$20,” “Emily I’m Sorry,” and “True Blue”—were written individually, which is why they hew closer to the styles of their primary writers than Boygenius’ earlier material. Bridgers sent a demo of the frosty and aqueous “Emily I’m Sorry” a week after the release of 2020’s Punisher, the result sounding like “Chinese Satellite” with more disintegration and decay; “True Blue” has the hallmarks of Dacus’ Home Video, from the timestamped lyrics (“You were born in July ’95”) to the bobbing cadence of the verses.

Of the three, the Baker-led “$20” represents the greatest synthesis of their powers. Like many of her songs, it is about a desperate compulsion toward self-ruin: motorcycles, empty wallets, a sleepless drive from Reno. “In another life we were arsonists,” she yelps, urged along by a choppy, almost pop-punk guitar riff. In evident contrast to the sweet and unified harmonies of the 2018 EP, Bridgers’ and Dacus’ backing vocals surge and recede like the crash of waves; the three artists swirl around each other, embodying various states of resignation and hysteria as the story’s protagonist takes flight. “There’s only so much I can take,” Dacus sings. “I know you have 20 dollars,” Bridgers insists. The world gets madder, the voices more paralyzing; the house of propane goes up in flames. “CAN YOU GIVE ME 20 DOLLARS!!!” Bridgers shrieks at the top of her lungs, ragged and horrifying. Then everything goes black. It’s magnificent theater: Welcome back, wunderkinds.