It’s strange and remarkable how music conjures visceral memories. In fact, according to neurologist Andrew Budson, music can “open forgotten doors to your memory” and “take you back in time.” When we hear a song that we associate with specific moments in our lives, the details of those moments come flooding back. 

As I prepare to graduate, time feels compressed. Experiences are denser, richer, faster. I’m fantasizing about my future, connecting with soon-to-be college classmates, battling senioritis, and spending as much time as possible with my family and friends in Lancaster. I know that the minutiae of this chaotic and poignant and pivotal time will be crystallized in my memory, and because this moment is so significant, so is its soundtrack. These end-of-senior-year firsts and lasts will be inextricably intertwined with Boygenius’s The Record. 

Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker, the three accomplished solo artists who constitute Boygenius, are deeply devoted to one another. Their debut album is in many ways a testament to their bond. On standout “True Blue,” Dacus’s rich alto and the upbeat instrumentals evoke the greatest joys of friendship. She sings,“It feels good to be known so well/I can’t hide from you like I hide from myself.” High school relationships can be so superficial; we long to know and be known, and yet we must balance that desire with our equally potent fear of judgment and social ostracization. Dacus sings of her friend, “You already hurt my feelings three times/In the way only you could.” But she cherishes the friendship anyway. “True Blue” communicates one of the most important things I learned this year, as I finally conquered the compulsion to conform to social expectations: to be understood, to be exposed as your most vulnerable self and embraced anyway, is a pleasure that transcends the hurt that is inevitable in close relationship. 

Of course, transitions are anxiety-inducing, and Boygenius captures that perfectly. In “Not Strong Enough” (probably my favorite song on The Record), Bridgers, Baker, and Dacus juxtapose energetic drums and rock vocals with apathetic, melancholy lyrics reminiscent of Bridgers’ best solo work. When I’m “staring at the ceiling fan” and catastrophizing, the song is a reminder not to, as Bridgers sings, “spin out about things that haven’t happened.” Who can’t relate?

While many of the songs on The Record are jubilant tributes to friendship, some convey the wistful nature of outgrowing people, another small sadness of graduating high school and leaving your hometown. In “Cool About It,” a heartbreakingly beautiful song that samples Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Boxer,” the three women sing about the artificial pleasantries and disingenuous small talk of the tentative aftermath of a breakup. Baker implores her ex to be “kind enough to be cruel about it,” while Bridgers laments the need for “method acting.” When intimacy expires, how can you be yourselves together? It’s an interesting question as we choose who to hold on to and who to let go of, as we determine how much of ourselves to conceal and how much to reveal.

The muted album closer “Letter To An Old Poet” encapsulates the grief of letting go of someone you love who you know isn’t good for you. The song uses the same melody as Boygenius’s 2018 single “Me And My Dog,” but it chronicles the end of the earlier song’s love glow, and the production has a more deflated quality. Bridgers resignedly sings, “You made me feel like an equal / But I’m better than you and you should know that by now.” In spite of its bitterness, the line reflects a critical realization I’ll be taking with me to college: I am adequate, I am worthy, and I owe no one deference. 

But while The Record dedicates many evocative lines to our failure to understand each other, the album’s thesis statement is that nothing is better than being seen. The three women sing in a capella harmony in opener “Without You Without Them,” “I want to hear your story and be a part of it.” Single-minded focus on achievement and competition (whether it be academic or social) alienates us from each other. The Record is a reminder that the best thing about being alive is hearing other people’s stories and being a part of them.