Mitski-Be The Cowboy Review
I’ve always admired Mitski Miyawaki for her ability to pack complex artistic ideas into bite-sized snippets. Her best projects, namely 2014’s Bury Me at Makeout Creek and 2016’s Puberty 2, have usually presented a unique indie rock sound capped out at around 30 minutes in length, filled only with songs hovering under a couple minutes. They contain frantic and devoted messages on relationships, depression, and punk ideology, exemplified on tracks like “Your Best American Girl” and “My Body’s Made of Crushed Little Stars”. Be the Cowboy follows this formula for the most part, packed with 14 songs centered around, in Mitski’s own words, loneliness and isolation.
Opener “Geyser” is cryptic, as in typical Mitski fashion, quickly rising into a dramatic melody just as a metaphorical geyser could. “Why Didn’t You Stop Me” is equally intoxicating, a sentimental and obsessive message for a lost lover (“I know that I ended it, but Why won’t you chase after me?”). The contrast between the track’s depressive lyricism and triumphant instrumental embodies another part of her powerful artistic ambition: making oxymorons into compelling musical ideas. “A Pearl” discusses the vanity and toxicity of surface-level relationships utilizing garage-rock style guitar riffs, while “Lonesome Love” channels her disappointment with backwards female stereotypes embraced in our society (“Spend an hour on my makeup, To prove something”).
“Remember My Name” is a sardonic expression towards the “immortality” of artists, straddling sentiments towards both eternal legacies and intimate memorability. The following “Me and My Husband” sounds like the modern successor to St. Vincent’s classic “Marry Me”, using a similarly upbeat tempo and vocal experimentation. “Nobody”, written during Mitski’s self-reflective stay in urban Malaysia, is easily the most brilliant track on the entire album. Pairing a sparkling instrumental and earworm-like repetition with crushingly depressing refrains on being unwanted (“Venus, planet of love, Was destroyed by global warming, Did its people want too much too?”), the end result is simultaneously addicting and off-putting. “Washing Machine Heart” is another beautiful moment on the record, with Mitski asking her significant other to pass their baggage onto herself (“Toss your dirty shoes in my washing machine heart, Baby, bang it up inside”), accompanied by a bouncy synth instrumental. The closer “Two Slow Dancers” is a subdued reflection on the therapeutic effect that intimacy can have, especially during mourning towards the loss of youth.
While not quite as experimental as Puberty 2, Be the Cowboy feels like just as strong an effort-predominantly due to it’s heightened lyrical maturity and condensed thematic ideas. Mitski remains a true gem in the lo-fi scene due to both her skill as a songwriter with reinterpreting done-to-death topics in an innovative fashion, and her impressive vocal ability to blend competing emotions into a singular one. Cowboy is easily a memorable addition to her discography, as well as one of the year’s strongest indie rock offerings.
