Sombr dug through Phoebe Bridgers’ emotional wreckage with a cover of “Motion Sickness” for BBC Radio 1. The 20-year-old crooned the melancholic record backed solely by a solemn piano melody.
“It’s not something I do very often,” Sombr said of the performance, describing it as a “good change,” but not something anyone should get used to seeing him do. There are similarly affecting moments on his debut album, I Barely Know Her, which arrived last year, but they’re usually coated in erratic alt-pop production. It was unusual, then, to hear his breakthrough single “Back to Friends” stripped down for the piano session.
“Sombr performs with a distinct internal confidence and external charm that has been notably absent in the withering releases from many of his male contemporaries in pop,” Rolling Stone wrote in a review of the record. “At times, it makes him seem much older than he is. But his age shows as he presents his findings from hard-learned lessons in love.”
The musician’s breakthrough year scored him a nomination for Best New Artist at the 2026 Grammy Awards alongside Olivia Dean, Katseye, The Marias, Addison Rae, Leon Thomas, Alex Warren, and Lola Young. Bridgers appeared in the category in 2021 in the company of winner Megan Thee Stallion, Ingrid Andress, Noah Cyrus, Chika, D Smoke, Doja Cat, and Kaytranada.
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Last year, Rolling Stone named “Motion Sickness” one of the greatest songs of the 21st century, writing, “‘Motion Sickness,’ the breakthrough song from Phoebe Bridgers’ celebrated 2017 debut, Stranger in the Alps, is a masterpiece breakup song that encapsulates all of her generational songwriting talents.” It’s part polemic, part eulogy, rendered with dry humor, plainspoken heartache, and biting fury as she plumbs the turbulent contradictions that defined her time with an older, manipulative man.”
