Tracy Bonham didn’t just re-record her debut album. She put it through therapy.
“A lot of bands hit the 20-year mark and think, ‘Hey, let’s re-record our biggest record so we can own the masters,’” Bonham says. “And sure, that was part of it. But I got bored with the idea fast. I already did that album. If I was going to revisit it, I wanted to breathe new life into it.”
The result is Modern Burdens, a full-scale reimagining of The Burdens of Being Upright, her 1996 debut that turned her into a staple of 90s alternative radio—mostly thanks to Mother Mother, that shout-along anthem of generational tension and barely-contained rage. But revisiting Burdens wasn’t just an exercise in sonic reinvention. It was a reckoning.
“These songs needed healing,” she says. “I was 20-something, full of angst, singing about how my ex was such a jerk. And I let him be a jerk! I don’t want to hear those songs in the same way anymore.”
Instead, she found a way to reframe them—not just musically, but emotionally. The new versions are moodier, groovier, and, as she puts it, “sexier.” That rigidity that defined her early work? Gone. “Back then, it was fast and aggro,” she says. “Now it’s like, ‘Hey, let’s actually sit in our bodies for a second.’”
If that sounds like therapy-speak, it is. “I just turned 50,” she says. “I’ve been doing the self-help thing. So why not put the album through a self-help machine too?”
That process also meant shifting the perspective of certain songs. You’re the One, originally a takedown of a specific ex, now carries a different target. “It’s about another misogynist we all know,” she says, declining to name names but making it obvious. “I just transposed his face onto my ex’s. It fit perfectly.”
The timing couldn’t have been more eerily prescient. Bonham started Modern Burdens in 2016, thinking it was going to be a celebration. “We thought, ‘Oh, it’s the Year of the Woman! First female president! Girl power! Wahoo!’” she laughs. Then came November. “We all woke up that Wednesday morning like, ‘Wait. What?’”
That moment solidified her vision. Modern Burdens wasn’t just a revisiting of her past—it had to be a full-on reclamation, with a chorus of women to back her up. “I started reaching out to other artists, some of whom I barely knew,” she says. “I just tweeted at them: ‘Hey, wanna sing on my album?’ And the responses were incredible.”
What started as a casual idea turned into a full-blown collaborative force. Seven of the album’s twelve tracks feature guest vocalists, including Tanya Donelly (Belly), Rachael Yamagata, Kay Hanley (Letters to Cleo), and Sadie Dupuis (Speedy Ortiz). “Hearing them talk about how the original album influenced them—it was wild,” Bonham says. “Like, I didn’t know I had that impact. It made my ego do push-ups.”
It’s a fascinating dynamic: an album born out of personal heartbreak and frustration, now reinterpreted by a new generation of artists who saw Burdens as anthemic rather than bitter. “It’s funny,” she says. “A lot of people connected with those songs in a universal way, but for me, it was just a very crummy time in my life.”
If Mother Mother was the gateway for most fans, Bonham hopes another track will get some overdue attention. Free, originally featured in the end credits of The Long Kiss Goodnight but never officially released, finally gets its proper home here. “People have been begging me for that song,” she says. “I figured, if I’m digging through the past, I might as well bring that one back too.”
Another deep cut got a major overhaul: Brain Crack, a 30-second interlude from Burdens, is now a full-fledged song. “I was just showing off that I could play violin back then,” she jokes. “Now it’s a full-on trip-hop thing.” The expansion was thanks in part to New Pornographers’ Kathryn Calder, who, according to Bonham, “casually sent over 35 vocal tracks and a piano part, like it was nothing.”
With Modern Burdens out in the world, Bonham is finally stepping out of the 90s again. “I had something else ready before I even did this,” she says. “I’ve got an album, a concept project, and something I’m calling an album for young music enthusiasts.”
And then, in classic cryptic musician form, she adds: “That’s all I’ll say for now.”
Listen to the full interview above and then check out a recent live performance of "Mother Mother" below!
