Tag: julien baker

I can’t remember who introduced me to Lucy Dacus. But a skim of our Whatsapp shows that while we all slept on it in 2023, Nolan was the first to alert us to it in April (perhaps from his legendary ‘Folk’ playlist). So, hats off brother, because that’s why we’re talking about Lucy Dacus’ fourth solo album, Forever Is A Feeling, and how I’ve come to bring it into the summer light. So, let’s rewind a little, then.

Back in early 2023, I’d not even heard of any of the trio of the acclaimed indie/rock/folk supergroup Boygenius. I’d been aware perhaps of Phoebe Bridgers in passing, but the album was a definition of a ‘how did we miss this?!’ record when we got to our 2024 Album of the Year picks for the podcast. In the November, it was catching fire, and by the time we recorded the podcast, it was climbing slowly into Top Tens. It hadn’t quite wrapped itself around me at that point but into early 2024, it really took off for me. 42 minutes, 12 songs – the TINH golden ratio – and some of the finest crafted songs of that year, however late they came to us. From the banjo-infused delicate feel of Cool About It, to the perfect rock of $20. It made me want to know who this trio was. Lucy Dacus, Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker were doing things I needed to hear, in ways I didn’t know I wanted. I played that album into the ground last year. it was the perfect confluence of female voices that played across the genres and had so much interesting to say about being a woman and being queer in the 2020s. They seemed to be having the time of their lives.

But this isn’t about the band, it’s about Dacus. Back in March, I had interest when Forever Is A Feeling was trailed, but I had no expectations of this weaving its way into my head and heart so much. I love when an artist that’s either new to you or you don’t have a big history with comes out of the wings to catch you unawares, and this feels like 2025’s for me. I was familiar with her voice from The Record, and how it sat so nicely within that frame, but on her own it was a focus that really called out the Virginian’s talent for melody and songwriting, and a skill with the guitar that took me by surprise. All the parts were there, fully formed: from the classical intro of Calliope Prelude, Big Deal was the first one that really had me: its simplicity of strummed guitar, brushed percussion and Dacus’ rich but expressive voice, talking of unrequited love come into the open, and it had this connection that I can’t quite explain when you feel a song is written for you. As I got to know the album, it felt so open, wearing its love and emotions large across its 13 tracks. And if you connect with that, it’s a powerful drug. Then I read the backstory and it all seemed to fall into place.

I’m slow to the context, for sure. But casting through news stories of the past and I realised there’s been speculation and rumours around the trio’s creative bonds ever since they got together, and whether there was anything more. And while it feels trite to buy into this stuff – they certainly enjoy how they dress, perform and make music together – because, really, in 2025 why can’t it just be a group of female friends and musical partners making amazing records together, finding out that Dacus and Baker were in a relationship earlier this year suddenly added layers to the music that I already felt a real connection to. Because when you reframe the songs on this album to that backdrop, it feels all the more relevant, meaningful and, above all, beautiful. Not because they should be telling us what is absolutely their business and theirs only, but because they did, and it felt right to do it. “It’s been interesting, because I want to protect what is precious in my life, but also to be honest, and make art that’s true,” Dacus told the New Yorker recently. “I think maybe a part of it is just trusting that it’s not at risk.” And we are all the beneficiaries of that trust.

So an album more generally about love, loss, infatuation, lust and life, became (mainly) about this. And it lifted it up to another level. The lust and sexual energy of Ankles (with this wonderful version on Jimmy Kimmel) took on a new meaning, and the gentle insistence of Best Guess transformed into a warm hope for future lives together. Mogdiliani’s intonation that “you make me homesick for places I’ve never been before” is a sweet sentiment. If it wasn’t coalesced around a person it may feel a bit mawkish, but I think there’s a truthfulness and openness to the songwriting – which clearly feels different after the fact – that makes this something special to me. The album isn’t all soft focus love songs, for that would be unfair on an artist of the talents of Dacus. Talk fizzes with scuzzy guitars and angst over, presumably, the ending of the previous relationship before Baker: “I didn’t mean to start
Talking in the past tense / I guess I don’t know what I think / ‘Til I start talking.” The balance between the start of something new and the end of the previous affair also looms large here.

There’s some wonderful turns of phrase throughout, with For Keeps lamenting “If the Devil’s in the details and God is everything / Who’s to say that they are not one and the same? / But neither one of them were there / In the mezzanine cheap seats, or waking up in dirty sheets.” In these moments, Dacus almost feels as if she’s close by, singing directly to you. The title track is a more urgent-sounding confession about feelings hidden coming into the open, with a lyric that’s half put-down and half hopeful statement: “Yeah, you’re smart / But you’re dumb at heart / And that’s a good start.” Come Out’s chorus has been washing around in my head for weeks. There are some less strong notes, especially the duet with Hozier, Bullseye, which feels the most derivative on the album, but quickly blown away by Most Wanted Man and the closer Lost Time, a hell of a pair of final cuts. The album hangs together loosely and easily, like an old jacket. I’m sure we’ll talk programming but I can’t think of things that feel particularly out of place, and it flows so easily into multiple runs. I feel it’s been here for years already.

It’s not just a simple album about one person though. Because Dacus and Boygenius inhabit something bigger in the cultural landscape. A trio of queer women, unashamedly themselves, proud of who they are and enjoying playing with those identities, should feel normal of course, but the country they are from is in a strange era. Right now they are the sort of creatives that the unhinged White House hates, and willing to campaign for gay rights, abortion and trans communities is not a simple choice to make for everyone in this decade. The more I read about them, the more I respect, admire and adore them, and Dacus’ music and the layers it has makes me wish I was on board when her debut No Burden came out in 2016. Perhaps, when I read some of the press, the fact that I’m only starting out now, may be why I see it more favourably than some who got in at the ground floor.

This album has had some – to me – odd reviews in a number of places that decry its lack of edge and softness compared to its predecessors. How it’s more rounded and content, perhaps disappointment that a promotion to a major label – from independent darling Matador to big time Geffen – has smoothed out a few too many of those rougher edges. I think – to me – there’s also another factor in play: that when you’re singing and writing about yourself, but that world is private to you, you can talk about the stories and images and weave them with all the colour you feel is needed – real or imagined. But when your relationship is public – and she must have written and completed the work knowing that was where it would end up and how it would be framed – there’s a different angle to that, surely? Where your public and very well-known partner is the centre of many of the songs, would you be as visceral, as brutal, as colourful as before? Only Dacus can know this, but when you are in love and that album is largely an expression of that, critical appraisal of that must feel more personal and I feel there’s something to that here. It’s Dacus’ (and Baker’s) truth, and no one else’s.

For sure, having listened to it recently, I certainly get that her debut was more guitar-led and spiky – but that was not the overriding style itself – and she’s sung of pain, grief, love, and loss to great effect on her past work, but I felt that there’s light and dark on all previous albums she’s done. I find it a quirk – perhaps confirmation bias – that a good number of the less favourable reviews I’ve read this time have been written by men. Laura Snapes’ excellent piece for Pitchfork is an exception, that while it ruminates on the albums style, it also posits that the record’s biggest transgression may be the statement of queer ‘contentment’ and I very much like that idea (though of course that should not be a thing).

And I’m sure that’s a thought I’ll carry into the podcast too. There’s a critical narrative for sure, and while I acknowledge that and see it, I adore it all the same. Journalists can sift through the album against a back catalogue and critically appraise changes in tone and style, I am just here to say I plain old love this record.

The question is, will you all?