Mitski - Be the Cowboy

Mitski - Be the Cowboy (2018)

Genre: Art Pop, Indie Rock

Indie rock singer/songwriter Mitski returns with her 5th full length LP, embracing the soft piano pop/rock of her earlier albums to much critical praise. This album is being reviewed per request. As a reminder, I do not intend for this to be a really in-depth and complex review. I'm just sharing my quick personal thoughts on the album. As for any album review I do, I try to be objective without letting any personal bias get too much in the way of the final grade.

Considering that Mitski has been a pretty underground name within the industry over the past few years, it's nice to see that this album has been getting a lot of attention. Granted, while I did enjoy this album, there seems to be a lot of unwarranted praise coming from professional critics and the general public which I frankly don't really understand. For one, while the songs on here are certainly pretty, Mitski seems to just play it safe for the most part. With a 32 minute run-time and 14 tracks, there's a lot of really short and sweet tracks on here that seem to end before they can really grow on you.

This even applies for some of my favorite tracks. Old Friend is probably the track that resonated with me the most, and I was fully enjoying it, but then it just fizzled out suddenly. Lonesome Love is another great track, which ends with a long, sustained note that, sonically, is kind of unsatisfying. And I'm not trying to nitpick, because the tracks' short length and less than pleasant endings don't necessarily detract from the songs' appeal overall. I just wish that Mitski had executed them in a better way. Nobody, while being one of my favorite songs on this record, isn't exempt from these weird, cut-out endings either. That said, all the songs here are quite pleasant and enjoyable, and as one critic pointed out, it's nice to hear her move on to "more conceptual themes" in her lyrics pretty effectively.

As I stated previously though, she plays this record very safe from a musical standpoint. There's almost no experimentation or enough variation in the structuring of these songs, and because of that, this album actually benefits from being relatively short as it is. The most interesting songs on here actually come in the form of the more rock-oriented tracks. Why Didn't You Stop Me and Remember My Name are good examples of this. The former making great use of synthesizers to push it forward. The more standard soft piano tracks scattered throughout are decent in their own right, but they just don't resonate as well with me. 

Honestly, it's kind of hard to flesh out my thoughts too much on this record. Yes, I do believe it's a good album, but I don't really understand the immense praise it's getting. And I am fully aware that you don't need to reinvent the formula to make something great, but as it is, the album as a whole isn't as exciting as critics were hyping it up to be. There's just not enough here to allow me to feel the same. When it comes to indie rock, this is a much more subtle, at times lovely album, but it could have been a bit "more."

B

Favorite Tracks: Why Didn't You Stop Me?, Old Friend, Lonesome Love, Remember My Name, Washing Machine Heart

Least Favorite Track: Geyser