Better Oblivion Community Center

Product Information

The album had an elaborate rollout featuring cryptic brochures and a telephone hotline. [6] They performed "Dylan Thomas" on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on January 23, 2019. [7] The album was released the next day. Phoebe Bridgers – vocals (1–10), guitar (1–4, 6–8), electric piano (2), baritone guitar (9, 10); production, photography Ah, okay. But you wrote them together. It’s not like Conor would have a song and send it to you, or you would have a song and he would just add bits to it. These songs you guys sat down and wrote together. In the same room? The album is a loose concept album about the Better Oblivion Community Center, a fictional dystopian wellness facility. [6] Release and promotion [ edit ]

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?

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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. Selected items are only available for delivery via the Royal Mail 48® service and other items are available for delivery using this service for a charge.

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? Alright. We can leave that in, I guess we answered it... So let’s get to when you two met. It was a show at the Bootleg in LA, and Conor you were playing a secret show and Phoebe, your friend at the venue got you to open for them. This was July 2016, so before Stranger In The Alps was out, and Conor, you were there early enough to watch her set. And afterwards you asked her to send you her record. You must’ve really been impressed with her set. And you produced it yourselves with Andy LeMaster. Andy’s someone you’ve worked with for almost your whole career, Conor. So he’s someone you trust?Hall, Michael James (January 28, 2019). "Better Oblivion Community Center: Better Oblivion Community Center (Dead Oceans) Review". Under the Radar . Retrieved January 30, 2019.

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. 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. 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?Because of their uniquely emo vocal styles and their tender subject matter, both Oberst and Bridgers are typically characterized as confessional songwriters, which can belie the complexity (and humor) of their work. In these songs, they push each other to write more in character. The opening “Didn’t Know What I Was in For” is an imagistic story-song that spirals out from dreary contentedness. Observing a friend who “says she cries at the news but doesn’t really” and eavesdropping on poolside conversations that start polite but “always sounds so cruel,” Bridgers implicates herself in a generational sense of helplessness: “I’ve never really done anything for anyone,” she sings over a mournfully strummed acoustic guitar. Serota, Maggie (January 24, 2019). "Conor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers Perform as Better Oblivion Community Center on Colbert". Spin . Retrieved January 24, 2019. Yeah! Burmese. Right?And then you tagged your location but later on you typed those characters into Google Translate and it turned out not to be tagged from “Forest Lawn”. It actually translated as “Better Oblivion Community Center”. Is that right? 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? 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.