A Bite of Courtney Barnett 🍪
A Bite of Courtney Barnett 🍪
The singer whose lyrics hit me like, “Fuck, woah, yes.”
Fun facts about artists you know and don’t, readable in 3 minutes or less. By Grace Lilly.
• 3 min read •
“Who is this? I love it.”
I asked my girlfriend one day in 2016 after hearing the most delicious guitar in a wonderfully badass tune. She told me the song was “Pedestrian at Best” by Courtney Barnett.
At the time I didn’t know of her, but my best friend’s name is Courtney so anyone with that name is gonna get my attention. Her lyrics make me smile, chuckle even. But they’ll also hit you like, “Fuck, woah, yes.” She’s freakishly good at getting to the heart of things. It reminded me of Bob Dylan. Barnett’s music is equal parts clever, sentimental, and powerful. Her voice feels true.
Over the last few years she’s become someone whose music I crave when I’m in a specific mood — when I need to feel seen and heard, to acknowledge some tough shit and feel it, process it, maybe even laugh about it.
Her song “Take It Day By Day” was the soundtrack to one of my favorite memories last year, walking around Central Park in July on a little solo date, looking around at all the people, feeling the sun on my face, and being glad for that moment.
Courtney Barnett
The basics
🤝 Australian singer, songwriter, and musician
🤝 b. 1987 (Australia)
🤝 Alternative, indie rock, slacker rock
Why you should know her: one of Rolling Stones’s 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time; mixes deeply insightful observations with poignant self-assessment
If you like
✨ Kurt Vile
✨ Sleater-Kinney
✨ Johnny Cash
✨ boygenius
✨ Parquet Courts
Known for
🏆 Her deadpan singing style and witty, rambling lyrics
🏆 Intricate, melodic finger-picking & frenetic, garage-rock-inspired solos
🏆 Nominated for the Best New Artist Grammy Award in 2015
Bite-sized facts
🍪 Worked as a pizza delivery driver while pursuing a music career
🍪 Plays left-handed and developed her own method of fingerstyle guitar because she disliked the sound of a pick
🍪 Toured as “Courtney Barnett and the Courtney Barnetts” with Bones Sloane and Dave Mudieup until the release of her debut album
🍪 Garnered attention online for the global guerilla campaign for the release of her single "Nobody Really Cares If You Don't Go to the Party” with billboards & posters of the song's name in London, NYC, LA, Melbourne and Sydney
🍪 Starred in the biographical documentary Anonymous Club (2021)
🍪 Played with the Rolling Stones at Hyde Park in London in 2022
Songs & dates
♫ 2013 "Avant Gardener," the lead single off The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas, brings Barnett international critical acclaim; named Best New Track by Pitchfork and Album of the Week by Stereogum
♫ 2015 Her debut album Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit is released worldwide
♫ 2016 She’s the musical guest on the season finale of SNL's 41st season, hosted by Fred Armisen
♫ 2017 Lotta Sea Lice, a collaborative album with Kurt Vile, comes out
♫ 2023 Releases End of the Day, written to score the 2021 documentary Anonymous Club
She said
⭐ “I have a normal life; I don't do anything crazy.”
⭐ “I don't like to overcook songs.”
⭐ “I just want to be self-sustainable so that I can continue to just do what I like to do and not make a million dollars. Nobody needs a million dollars.”
⭐ “Artists thrive off each other, and when you see other people doing cool stuff, it inspires you to do cool stuff.”
My Courtney Playlist
I gathered my fav Courtney songs, from me to you with love. Save on Spotify and listen all week 💗
Where to start
Surprise busking in London
Her global guerilla campaign for the release of "Nobody Really Cares If You Don't Go to the Party” culminated in this surprise performance in Camden, London
〰️
Live at WFUV radio
TSCML contributor Deirdre Hynes edited this video of Courtney performing at WFUV radio in NYC (Deirdre and I used to work there together 😊)
〰️
With Kurt Vile
Performing at NPR’s Tiny Desk in 2017
Down the rabbit hole
If you wanna dive even deeper:
Anonymous Club documentary
The feature documentary from Danny Cohen that pulls back the curtain on enigmatic singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett. Watch on Amazon Video or Apple TV.
Latest diary entry 🤫
I’d never seen anything so weird
I was curled up in bed a few years ago with a bowl of Rold Gold pretzels, my go-to movie snack. It was my first time watching the cult classic House, a thrillingly bizarre, visually stunning 70s movie about a group of Japanese schoolgirls in a haunted house.
I’ve always loved anything weird, so this was perfect for me. It’s part beautiful, part gross, part funny, part earnest. Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi, this “psychedelic ghost tale” is one-of-a-kind…
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