By Lucy Oster ’23
Staff Writer
An artist’s rendition of singer Michelle Zauner, aka Japanese Breakfast. Graphic by Gaby Gagnon ‘24.
Michelle Zauner, better known by her stage name, Japanese Breakfast, has had a busy spring. Her memoir, “Crying in H Mart,” was released in April and reached number two on The New York Times Best Sellers list. Zauner then released the third Japanese Breakfast studio album, entitled “Jubilee,” in early June. Both the memoir and album have defined my June: the book’s jacket is still filled with sand from a trip to the beach, and I have particularly enjoyed playing “Jubilee” in the car with the windows down.
“Jubilee” sounds a bit different from Zauner’s previous music. The album still fits the indie sound listeners heard and loved on “Psychopomp” and “Soft Sounds from Another Planet,” Zauner’s previous two albums, released in 2016 and 2017, respectively. For example, “Everybody Wants to Love You” from “Psychopomp” has a similar energy to tracks on “Jubilee.” However, the ten songs on “Jubilee” largely lean towards the pop side of indie music.
“Be Sweet,” the album’s first single, released in early March, exemplifies Zauner’s new indie pop sound. Like many other current musicians, Zauner has been influenced by ’80s music. “[‘Be Sweet’ has] this kind of ’80s jam — a Whitney Houston, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper kind of feel,” Zauner said, speaking to Sterogum. The ’80s influence Zauner discussed shows in the track’s delightful synth-heavy production.
The “Be Sweet” music video emphasizes just how fun the song is. It stars Zauner and Marisa Dabice, lead vocalist of the indie rock band Mannequin Pussy. The two play goofy FBI agents dressed in ridiculous-looking wigs. I recognized this as an amusing reference to the ’90s science fiction drama series “The X-Files.” The reason behind “The X-Files” influence becomes obvious when Zauner reaches the song’s chorus and, dressed in a bright yellow suit and more contemporary makeup, looks up at the camera, beaming, and sings, “I want to believe in something.” Fans of the show will recognize this as a reference to the iconic poster featured in the opening credits.
The album title of “Jubilee” promises cheer. On Twitter, Zauner wrote, “My new album is called Jubilee. It is about joy.” To me, the emphasis on happiness was surprising at first, especially since “Crying in H Mart,” initially released under the same name as a 2018 essay in The New Yorker, covers the death of Zauner’s mother, who died in 2014 after years of battling cancer. In her memoir, Zauner wrote of the experience, “Sometimes my grief feels as though I’ve been left alone in a room with no doors.”
The contrast between the happiness appearing on “Jubilee” and the sadness portrayed in “Crying in H Mart” seems striking, but I think the drastic difference between the two works’ moods actually makes a lot of sense. Through her album, Zauner seems to explain that a person cannot be defined by grief forever, and her ability to present two opposite emotional aspects of herself, and in two mediums, is a testament to her genius writing ability.
The album isn’t entirely about joy. “Kokomo, IN,” an emotional love song Zauner has called her favorite off of the album, deals with the struggles of a long-distance relationship. “Posing in Bondage” and “Posing for Cars” grapple with the difficulties of intimacy. “Tactics” deals with Zauner’s estrangement from her father, which she also wrote about in her book. Her father moved to Thailand shortly after Zauner’s mother’s passing, and in “Tactics,” she sings, “Cross a sea, keep you from me.” Speaking to Stereogum, Zauner called “In Hell,” about the death of both her dog and mother, “the darkest song [she has] ever written.”
“‘[In Hell]’ was actually a bonus song on ‘Soft Sounds [From Another Planet],’ so it was written a long time ago, but it was another one of those songs that I thought was too great to not be heard,” Zauner said during the same interview.
Despite the dark themes emerging during “In Hell” and throughout the album, Zauner seems to be primarily looking ahead to the future and its joyous potential. On “Savage Good Boy,” she sang, “I've got a five year plan / I’ve got a pension and six condos / A billion dollar bunker for two.” She remains a realist about the potential doom and gloom of the future of that five year plan, especially in relation to climate change, but she spins a positive and romantic twist onto the situation: “And when the city's underwater / I will wine and dine you in the hollows / On a surplus of freeze dried food.”
On “Paprika,” the album’s opening track, Zauner asks, “How’s it feel to be at the center of magic / To linger in tones and words?” I say we reverse this question onto Zauner herself. She has been the center of her own artistic magic lately, lingering in the musical tones of “Jubilee” and the words of “Crying in H Mart.” To enjoy all of this newly created art, even from the outside, feels great.