Not Strong Enough
The song's music video chronicles the band spending a day together in various locations around Los Angeles County; it received praise for its candid depiction of the three musicians' friendship, and for having an uplifting aura that contrasted with the relatively dark subject matter of the lyrics.
The band regularly performed the song while touring behind The Record; audiences and reviewers generally considered it to be a highlight of each concert.
The three decided to start sharing demos and ideas for songs in a Google Drive folder and a group chat, convening in California twice in 2021 to write together in person.
[2][7] The band was secretive about the writing and recording processes while they were ongoing; when individual members were asked in interviews whether they would reunite, they generally gave oblique and evasive responses.
[2] Rumors about a debut album from Boygenius began spreading in late 2022 to 2023, following a photoshoot in November 2022 and the announcement of their inclusion on the 2023 Coachella lineup.
[c] Allaire Nuss of Entertainment Weekly and Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times assessed the guitar riffs as possessing luminescent qualities.
[16] In an interview with Zan Rowe of the Australian radio station Double J, Catherine Marks recalled that, with mixing assistance from Sarah Tudzin, she used takes from two drummers—Carla Azar and Barbara Gruska—to splice together the song's percussion.
[44] The synthesizers were compared to music of the 1980s by Kyle Petersen of No Depression and the American rock band the War on Drugs by John Vettese of WXPN.
[51] The song reaches its climax near the end of the bridge, carried by "thundering instrumentation" according to NPR Music, as Baker's and Bridgers's voices raise drastically.
[50][63] It namechecks the song "Boys Don't Cry" by the English rock band the Cure,[15][53][64] which Alex Harris of Neon Music perceived to reference how people are expected by society to keep their emotions hidden.
[48] Quinn noted that "Boys Don't Cry" shares its name with a 1999 film about Brandon Teena, a trans man who was slain in a hate crime; he suggested that Baker's verse contains a double entendre alluding to drag performers and anti-LGBT bigotry.
Bridgers had thought of the referential lyric, "Not strong enough to be your man", long before the song was written and had been waiting for the right opportunity to include it.
[62] To Atwood Magazine's Nic Nichols and Dazed's Günseli Yalcinkaya, the lyric encapsulated the struggles of women against misogyny in the music industry.
Multiple publications named it a highlight of The Record in their reviews of the album, including Alternative Press,[86] NME,[87] DIY,[88] PopMatters,[43] Beats Per Minute,[89] Exclaim!,[90] Flood Magazine,[62] Paste,[91] and Uncut.
[92] Lola J. DeAscentiis of The Harvard Crimson was extremely positive, hailing the song as "a stunning masterpiece that manages to turn the most gruesome mental breakdown into a work of art, yet still avoids the romanticization of these struggles.
[58] Ben Tipple of DIY referred to the song as "a shining moment in a sound of friendship that doesn't take itself too seriously, but comes built on an unshakable admiration for every facet of their beings.
It starts with images of roadside scenery, interspersed with a clip of members headbanging while driving,[12][109] before the band arrives at the Santa Monica Pier.
In one sequence, the screen continually moves to the right as Baker, Bridgers, and Dacus stand erect in between several busts, attempting to mimic their stoic facial expressions.
Next, the band practices softball in a batting cage before visiting a miniature golf course, where Baker and Bridgers climb a small castle used as a prop.
The video finishes with the band having a beachside bonfire, where in one scene, they are running around while waving brightly colored smoke bombs through the air.
[110][111] Lola J. DeAscentiis of The Harvard Crimson, Robin Murray of Clash, and Will Schube of uDiscover Music opined that the presentation of the video resembled that of a home movie.
"[50] Derrick Rossignol of Uproxx commented that the video made apparent the strength of the band's bond, further stating that it "echo[ed] the album's mission statement, which was described in previous press materials as being 'about recapturing joy.
'"[109] Newsweek's David Chiu remarked that the unassuming nature of the video contrasted Boygenius against past supergroups, whom he noted to have been afflicted with "commercial pressures and ego".
[11] Boygenius first performed "Not Strong Enough" at Carnegie Hall as part of a benefit concert for Tibet House US on March 1, 2023, coinciding with the release of the single.
The band's inclusion was arranged shortly before the concert; the only other song in their setlist was fellow The Record track "Cool About It", which was also performed live for the first time.
In a four-star review of an August 20 performance at Gunnersbury Park, Kitty Empire of The Guardian described the song as a "theme tune" for the band.
[115] Reviewing a June 13 concert at Harrah's Cherokee Center, Brian Postelle of Asheville Stages described a visceral crowd reaction to the song, writing that "If [the audience] had all been suddenly lifted into the air and spirited away, it would not have seemed so out of place.
[55][118] When the Tour concluded with a concert on Halloween at the Hollywood Bowl, the band dressed as the Trinity—Dacus as the Father, Bridgers as the Spirit, and Baker as the Holy Son—to perform the song in a move which Variety compared to the "always an angel, never a God" lyric.
[122][123] In the same episode, the band appeared in a skit alongside Timothée Chalamet as four likenesses of Troye Sivan—all of them approximating Sivan's own fashion style and choreography—which were sleep paralysis demons hallucinated by a character played by Sarah Sherman.
[d][126] Several media outlets remarked that Boygenius was amongst a large number of LGBT artists who had received nominations and awards, including Cyrus, Sivan, Brandy Clark, Billie Eilish, Victoria Monét, and Romy.
