Phoebe Bridgers Ditched the Internet to Hype Up Her New Music. It’s Working
Phoebe Bridgers Ditched the Internet to Hype Up Her New Music. It’s Working
菲比·布里杰斯（Phoebe Bridgers）抛弃互联网为新歌造势，效果显著
For six years, I have found myself randomly wondering, “Is this the year Phoebe Bridgers finally puts out a new album?” The answer has always been a resounding “no.” 六年来，我时不时会想：“今年菲比·布里杰斯终于要发新专辑了吗？”而答案总是一声响亮的“不”。
That changed on May 8, when mysterious flyers appeared in Roswell, New Mexico, announcing a show that same day at the Liberty, a venue that holds a few hundred people. Equally small pop-ups announced by flyer have followed in places ranging from Lubbock, Texas, to Macon, Georgia. On Thursday, another pop-up—also announced via flyer—is happening at a decidedly bigger venue: Madison Square Garden, where Tidal is a sponsor and tickets are $1. 这种情况在5月8日发生了改变。当时，新墨西哥州罗斯威尔市出现了一些神秘传单，宣布当天将在仅能容纳几百人的“自由”（Liberty）场馆举办一场演出。随后，从德克萨斯州的拉伯克到乔治亚州的梅肯，各地都出现了类似的、通过传单宣布的小型快闪演出。周四，另一场同样通过传单宣布的快闪演出将在一个规模大得多的场地举行：麦迪逊广场花园。该活动由Tidal赞助，票价仅为1美元。
Yet despite her run of nearly 20 shows, I haven’t heard a single note of new music. No recording is allowed, with concertgoers required to put their phones in Yondr pouches. The dearth of information has turned fans into investigators trying to determine where the next show will be and if—or when—a new album is coming. 然而，尽管她已经举办了近20场演出，我却连一个新音乐的音符都没听到。现场禁止录音，观众必须将手机放入Yondr手机袋中。信息的匮乏将粉丝们变成了调查员，他们试图推断下一场演出会在哪里，以及新专辑是否——或何时——会发布。
When there’s a “firehose of music and content, scarcity becomes a powerful tool,” says Jesse Sachs, a culture marketing strategist. That can, in turn, help artists make their work stand out in an era of ubiquity. 文化营销策略师杰西·萨克斯（Jesse Sachs）表示，当“音乐和内容如洪水般涌来时，稀缺性就成了一种强大的工具”。这反过来又能帮助艺术家在内容泛滥的时代让自己的作品脱颖而出。
“So much of the rollout has resisted the normal internet cycle,” says twilightxgalaxy, a moderator of the Phoebe Bridgers subreddit who asked to remain unnamed to preserve their privacy. “Information has been limited, fragmented, and sometimes only available to the people physically present, which has made every new detail feel more significant.” “这次推广活动的很大一部分抵制了常规的互联网周期，”Phoebe Bridgers subreddit的版主twilightxgalaxy说道（为了保护隐私，他们要求匿名）。“信息受到限制、碎片化，有时只有亲临现场的人才能获取，这使得每一个新细节都显得更加重要。”
They say the daily drip of information and engagement online turned “a surprise announcement into a full-scale community detective project.” 他们表示，每天零星流出的信息和在线互动，将“一次惊喜公告变成了一个全规模的社区侦探项目”。
That detective work involved a daily thread of show speculation that included educated guesses based on a theory that Bridgers was playing places with a history of UFO sightings, as well as a fair share of wishcasting. Group chats sprung up as people scoured their towns in real life for show flyers. People are digitally compiling photos of cards handed out at the shows that appear to be part of a bigger picture—possibly an album cover—and speculating on musical themes. 这项侦探工作包括一个关于演出猜测的每日讨论帖，其中既有基于“布里杰斯正在有UFO目击记录的地点演出”这一理论的推测，也有不少粉丝的一厢情愿。随着人们在现实生活中搜寻演出传单，各种群聊也随之涌现。人们在数字平台上汇总演出时发放的卡片照片，这些卡片似乎是更大画面（可能是专辑封面）的一部分，并据此推测音乐主题。
As a fan, I wasn’t above a little light detective work myself. Did I ask Claude to come up with a list of potential California tour stops based on the fan theory that she was playing places with UFO sightings? Was I prepared to drive eight hours to Area 51 for a shot to see her live with a few hundred people? Yes I did, and yes I was. 作为一名粉丝，我也没能免俗，亲自参与了一些轻量级的侦探工作。我有没有让Claude根据粉丝关于“她在UFO目击地演出”的理论，列出一份加州潜在的巡演地点清单？我有没有准备好开车八小时去51区，只为有机会和几百人一起看她的现场演出？是的，我做了，我也准备好了。
My investigation didn’t yield results, unfortunately, but LeAnna Chase Williams, a Cincinnati-based content creator, managed to crack the code. She pegged a venue called the Burl in Lexington, Kentucky—the town where she grew up—as the likely next tour stop after a Chattanooga, Tennessee, show. 遗憾的是，我的调查没有结果，但来自辛辛那提的内容创作者莉安娜·蔡斯·威廉姆斯（LeAnna Chase Williams）成功破解了密码。在田纳西州查塔努加的一场演出后，她锁定肯塔基州列克星敦（她长大的城市）一家名为“The Burl”的场馆，认为那里很可能是下一站。
Chase Williams had been following the tour as it wended across the Southeast and through Appalachia. Lexington is a little less than five hours from Chattanooga and is a college town, a common theme for many of Bridgers’ shows. The Burl is “one of the only cooler indie music venues in Lex,” says Chase Williams, “and when I looked up their events schedule and saw that the next day they randomly had no event booked, I knew something was up.” 蔡斯·威廉姆斯一直在追踪这次巡演，看它如何穿过东南部和阿巴拉契亚地区。列克星敦距离查塔努加不到五个小时车程，而且是一座大学城，这是布里杰斯许多演出地点的共同特征。“The Burl是列克星敦为数不多比较酷的独立音乐场所之一，”蔡斯·威廉姆斯说，“当我查阅他们的活动日程，发现第二天他们竟然没有安排任何活动时，我就知道有情况了。”
She drove down on May 22 and waited in the rain for hours with dozens of other fans who had made the same bet, and was rewarded when Bridgers’ crew showed up with posters announcing the show. 她在5月22日开车前往，和几十位做出同样判断的粉丝在雨中等了几个小时，最终得到了回报——布里杰斯的工作人员带着宣布演出的海报出现了。
She describes sitting cross-legged watching Bridgers performing on a couch in front of an audience of around 200 as the “best.” The no-phones policy “made the entire experience,” Chase Williams, 26, says. “I truly wish every concert was like that, having now experienced it.” 她形容盘腿坐在沙发前，看着布里杰斯在约200名观众面前表演，是“最棒的体验”。26岁的蔡斯·威廉姆斯说，禁止使用手机的规定“成就了整个体验”。“在亲身体验过之后，我真心希望每一场演唱会都能这样。”
With no recording of the new songs, she says, “I have a few favorites I wish I could play back in my head. I can’t even imagine how awesome the new album is going to be.” 由于没有新歌的录音，她说：“我有几首最喜欢的歌，真希望能在脑海中回放。我简直无法想象新专辑会有多棒。”
The shows are extremely intimate, and so is the experience of learning about them. The way you find out “is a picture of a flyer that was shared by someone that you don’t even know. That makes it so much more interesting than a label just posting,” says Sachs, adding, “It has a discovery element that makes everything more valuable.” 这些演出极其私密，了解它们的过程也是如此。萨克斯说，你发现演出的方式“是一张由你不认识的人分享的传单照片。这比唱片公司直接发布公告要有趣得多，”他补充道，“它带有一种发现的元素，让一切都变得更有价值。”
That’s not to say the approach has been easy to pull off. R/phoebebridgers moderators said the singer’s crew asked them to remove posts that reference new songs’ lyrics “given the strict privacy/controls around the shows.” The moderators also chose to remove links to group texts and servers because of indications fans were tracking the tour bus and that there were “troubling reports about risks to the safety of younger fans.” 这并不是说这种方法很容易实现。R/phoebebridgers的版主表示，歌手的团队要求他们删除引用新歌歌词的帖子，“鉴于演出周围严格的隐私/控制措施”。版主们还选择删除了群聊和服务器的链接，因为有迹象表明粉丝们在追踪巡演巴士，并且有“关于年轻粉丝安全风险的令人不安的报告”。
The Madison Square Garden show will implement the same no-phone rule as the small pop-ups, but twilightxgalaxy says it marks a transition “between the mystery and intimacy of the pop-up shows and the next phase of the rollout.” 麦迪逊广场花园的演出将实施与小型快闪演出相同的禁手机规定，但twilightxgalaxy表示，这标志着“快闪演出的神秘与私密性，与推广活动下一阶段之间”的过渡。
Artists are increasingly experimenting with ways to bring fans closer to their work. Last year, Lucy Dacus played a short run of museum shows with tickets only available via a lottery, while this year, Drake built an ice installation in Toronto to tease his new albums. (The fire department melted it because it was deemed a public safety hazard.) 艺术家们正越来越多地尝试各种方式，让粉丝更贴近他们的作品。去年，露西·达库斯（Lucy Dacus）在博物馆举办了一系列小型演出，门票仅通过抽签发放；而今年，德雷克（Drake）在多伦多建造了一个冰雕装置来预热他的新专辑。（消防部门因其被视为公共安全隐患而将其融化了。）
Smaller artists are also finding ways to stand out: Sachs highlights New York rapper Lexa Gates’ walking for 10 hours on a human-size wheel while allowing fans to come and watch as a way to generate buzz for a new album and make a statement about her art. 较小的艺术家也在寻找脱颖而出的方法：萨克斯特别提到了纽约说唱歌手莱克萨·盖茨（Lexa Gates），她在一个人体大小的轮子上行走了10个小时，并允许粉丝前来观看，以此为新专辑造势，并表达她对艺术的见解。
While big artists playing small, surprise shows is a tale as old as time—here’s where I cancel myself by sharing that as a teenager, I once waited overnight to see Limp Bizkit play the Worcester Palladium in Massachusetts—the tactic has become more valuable at a time when you can turn up endless clips of live performances or add nearly any song as a backtrack on TikTok. In some ways, not hearing the music can also ensure it has a greater impact when an album is finally released. 虽然大牌艺术家举办小型惊喜演出是老生常谈——在这里我要自曝一下，我十几岁时曾彻夜排队去看林普巴兹提特（Limp Bizkit）在马萨诸塞州伍斯特帕拉迪姆的演出——但在这样一个可以随时找到无数现场表演片段，或在TikTok上将几乎任何歌曲添加为背景音乐的时代，这种策略变得更有价值。在某种程度上，听不到音乐本身，也能确保当专辑最终发布时，它能产生更大的冲击力。
“If you look at the best albums of 2026, you’ll see a bunch of albums of artists you “如果你看看2026年的最佳专辑，你会看到一堆你所熟悉的艺术家的专辑……”