Mitski
Be the Cowboy
Release Date: Aug 17, 2018
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock
Record label: Dead Oceans Records
Music Critic Score
How the Music Critic Score works
Buy Be the Cowboy from Amazon
Album Review: Be the Cowboy by Mitski
Exceptionally Good, Based on 18 Critics
Based on rating 5/5
J ohn C. Reilly’s Dr. Steve Brule is a pillar of loneliness. He seeks out companionship through his crudely made public access TV show Check It Out!, a program in which he loutishly explores a tapestry of broad topics in episodes like “Food,” Pleasure,” and the source of the above quote, “Horse.” As he sets out to learn about an episode’s given subject, interviews are conducted with local personalities, during which time the doctor’s desperation for friendship becomes painfully apparent.
Based on rating A
Subscribe via iTunes | Google Play | Radio Public | Stitcher | RSS The Lowdown: None of us has just one love story inside. No one has just one heartbreak. These moments that pinprick our hearts and shift the earth under our feet — we collect them. For some of us, maybe, the ones drawn to grasping at the romance and intimacy of the everyday, our love stories and their consequences can number in the thousands.
Based on rating 9/10
There are few figures as solitary as the mythic cowboy. The stranger rides into town, but more importantly, also rides out at the end of the story. There may be romance, violence and comradery. But ultimately the cowboy stands alone, powerful and swaggering, but singular. This is the role that ….
Based on rating 9/10
You can learn more about this album by reading Rob Hakimian's fantastic interview with Mitski, which goes deep with every track. Mitski Miyawaki's nihilistic witticisms and words of doubt can lay waste to anything remotely joyous, yet her resounding voice is capable of assuaging any pent-up affliction dwelling within. Not many musicians are capable of operating such a stark dichotomy, but this is the very reason as to why Mitski is a once-in-a-blue-moon type talent.
Based on rating 9/10
Two years after her 2016 album Puberty 2, a release that led to tours with Lorde and Pixies and moved her out of the smaller clubs as a headliner, Mitski Miyawaki took the unusual step of trying to warn fans via social media and interviews about her next album. Saying that it wasn't going to be as personal, she implied that those who related to her and tracks like "Your Best American Girl" might be disappointed that she was setting aside the perspective of an outsider longing to fit in. Instead, the follow-up, Be the Cowboy, finds her adopting the persona of a married woman who fits in and lives up to expectations but longs to break free.
Based on rating 8.8/10
Before picking up a guitar for 2014's Bury Me at Makeout Creek, Mitski Miyawaki's instrument of choice was the piano. She played it on the two records she created as a studio composition major in college, where she was backed by a gigantic student orchestra. Once again behind the keys, her fifth album, Be the Cowboy, displays Mitski's knowledge of song structure and her ability to bend any idea to her will.
Based on rating 8.5/10
Back in college Mitski intently and repeatedly watched a white guy perform. He was a confident, swaggering and charismatic performer, lock, stock and barrel. Years on, she misses seeing him. Instead of tracking him down though, she thought "if I miss seeing that, I should embody that". You know ….
Based on rating 4/5
Mitski Miyawaki has, over the past half a decade, become one of the most consistently promising songwriters in indie rock. Through LPs 'Bury Me At Makeout Creek' and 'Puberty 2', the singer has shown herself able to transmit intensity and intimacy in their extremes, sometimes at once. 'Be The Cowboy' begins with first single 'Geyser', a particularly intense, thudding thrash, but takes a series of unexpected turns from then on.
Based on rating 4.0/5
On Be the Cowboy, Mitski's formula—anthemic pop songs grounded in lean, organic arrangements and intimate vocals and lyrics—recalls that of Lorde, for whom the Japanese-American singer-songwriter recently opened on tour. Mitski's lyrics remain eccentric as ever, rife with sexual agitation and the desperation of losing control—more “manic depression” than Melodrama. But she's cast off her mopey, confessional girl-with-a-guitar persona in favor of bright instrumental tones, pulsing beats, and commanding vocals.
Based on rating 8/10
Mitski doesn't want Be the Cowboy to sound like Puberty 2. She made a concerted effort to ditch the distorted guitars that rang through her 2016 breakout album. Instead, we hear her, loud and clear and at the front of the mix from the opening croons to the euphoric crescendo of "Geyser" — as its name suggests, a song about a woman erupting with passion too long caged. From there, Mitski takes delightfully unexpected turns at many points during the record, from the stuttering synths of "Why Didn't You Stop Me" and campy piano ….
Based on rating 4
Channeling the rootlessness and lonesomeness which came from an itinerant upbringing ("If I attached … I'd have to detach," she told the New York Times; “[so] I just kind of floated above”), Mitski Miyawaki wrapped up alienation, failure, lovelorn longing and the assertion of cultural identity in the 11 songs on her fourth album, released in June 2016. She called it Puberty 2, pithily capturing the irony of conquering adolescence only to continue fucking up well into young adulthood and beyond. And in capturing it, hopefully going some way towards defeating it.
Based on rating 4/5
On her fifth record, 'Be The Cowboy', the American-Japanese songwriter conducts grander musical theatrics than before When Mitski Miyawaki shared 'Nobody' in June, the song was a surprising deviation from her distortion-heavy guitar ballads. A wonky disco tune about loneliness that pulsed in offbeat, 'Nobody' sounded deliberately different to the musician's angsty breakthrough records. Sure, it was Mitski, but this time there was added drama.
Based on rating 3.8/5
"QUEEN IT'S WHAT YOU DESERVE GET THAT RECOGNITION" Watching the Genius video for Mitski's single "Nobody" is just, uh, absolutely fucking absurd. Mitski Miyawaki sits, buoyant, bubbly, explaining this gutwrenching song about crushing loneliness with the gleaming smile of someone who has only been paying attention to the jazzy instrumental and not the words bouncing across the surface. Ha ha ha ha "[Nobody was]…literally me in a semi-fugue state on my hands and knees just crying" ha ha ha ha.
Based on rating 7/10
Mitski Miyawaki has a hard task: She has to somehow produce a follow up to her 2016 album Puberty 2, a master-class of indie-rock with punk and balladeer edges that touched on identity, love, and rage. Mitski's new album, Be the Cowboy, doesn't quite reach those but it almost feels unfair— if this wasn't following up such a monumental album, it would a great achievement. Opener "Geyser" sets the tone nicely— instead of jagged, post-grunge guitars and anthemic build-ups, Be the Cowboy is, by-and-large, more tightly controlled with occasional crashes of emotions (with the exception of tracks like "A Pearl").
Opinion: Absolutly essential
Rating: NNNNN It's sometimes surprising when you discover that pop songs, as loud and vibrant as they often are, can be quite devastating. This is especially true on Mitski's excellent fifth album. The NYC-based indie musician explores all the different ways you can feel lonely - and how powerless it can leave you - through sparse and dramatic rock songs.
Opinion: Excellent
On 2016's Puberty 2, Mitski's power-pop-punk and indie melodies, coupled with the lyrical themes of isolation and longing, catered to a tween audience. Things have changed considerably since then, with help from producer Patrick Hyland, and she has found a cleaner pop sound. The arrangements are more accomplished, their intricacies clearer with each listen, and the inspirations are more elegant too.
Opinion: Excellent
Since the breakout success of her previous two albums, 2014's 'Bury Me At Makeout Creek' and 2016's 'Puberty 2', Mitski hasn't been afraid to discuss her recently acquired fame. And while the narrative of the DIY musician transforming into an indie and music press star isn't a new one, it is one that still brings a variety of obstacles in its wake. From high expectations, strenuous touring schedules and emotional disconnect, it's easy to see how this change can derail many musicians.
Opinion: Excellent
Don't be fooled by lyrics like "My God, I'm so lonely" or "I hear my heart breaking tonight." Yes, Mitski is an artist defined by her ability — perhaps willingness — to explore her own vulnerabilities, and yes, she exudes said ability in full on her latest album, "Be the Cowboy." That said, she's anything but the helpless singer-songwriter who puts sulking to song. The album, to be released Friday, shows an artist simultaneously candid and confident, someone in control of demons she hasn't quite conquered. Five albums in, Mitski continues to create some of the sharpest, most intense, no-fuss indie rock in recent memory.
'Be the Cowboy'
is available now