Be the Cowboy

Be the Cowboy is about capriciousness, denying the contrivances of beauty in some ways while bending to its standards in others. She’s walking the divide between love and heartache, between dejection and fury. But Miyawaki has the talent to straddle that line with poise and aplomb; she’s the geyser and also the slow dancer. She’s singing for herself, but also for her audience. There’s a little Mitski in us all, pilgrim.

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. ... It’s a bold record, rising and falling over the course of 14 tracks.

Be the Cowboy shows that love and loss can be grand and small at the same time. That two minutes is more than enough time to melt down emotion into a pure concentrate and nearly drown yourself in it. That every moment can be a epic love story, that every heartbreak can be as hard and small as a pearl and just as coveted.

Although Be The Cowboy sees Mitski fully transformed from her lo-fi beginnings in terms of production, her post-Pixies guitar-rock tendencies still come through strong, albeit now more lush and kaleidoscopic than buzzing and raucous.

For her, it’s filtered through the attitude of the cowboy, her power coming through in her music and her words. Under these guises, she finds layers of emotional truth that are messy, confusing and often conflicting, but no less honest because of that.

Though it’s a record perspiring uncertainty and the fear of becoming stagnant, Be The Cowboy is Mitski’s most personal and confrontational thus far. It’s violently poignant and the mark of an artist who’s barely tapped into her singularity.

Rather than being a disappointment, Be the Cowboy's point of view provides a brilliant twist, one that channels all the unease, unpredictability, and intuitiveness of Mitski's previous work--even for those who don't take in the lyrics.

These 14 complex compositions warp the pop textbook into something more knotty and internal, creating a unique zone where the 27-year-old thrives: She’s never sounded so large, even in the record’s quietest moments.

There's an outlaw spirit to this record: when shit happens you just gotta get back on the saddle.

Be the Cowboy shows why she is fast making herself into one of the most interesting songwriters of her generation.

Mitski’s devotion to music has resulted in a tremendously earnest and endearing record.

Mitski’s songs about love are a tangle of mixed messages in precise, idiosyncratic packages. ... On this album, even more than she has before, Mitski makes the music her partner.

Rather than crumbling under the pressure of acclaim, Mitski embraces it and is all better for it. These trials and tribulations that birthed Be The Cowboy have not only developed Mitski as a musician, but also act as another sign that she has the potential to be considered one of the best singer-songwriters of our generation.

As a self-contained piece, just furthers her ability to create immersive worlds to fall into.

Be The Cowboy is a standout because of its restlessness, Mitski winding each lonely melody through the peripatetic music and always landing someplace unexpectedly moving.

There may be nothing explicitly political in the songs on Be the Cowboy. But there’s plenty implicit, from the DIY American mythology of the title, to the way the songs validate voices that are shaky, hurting, irrational, and damaged, while also being smart, wry, powerful, and deserving of love.

With 14 tracks clocking in at around 30 minutes, the album is a remarkably fast listen given the amount of detail packed into each song. Mitski is generally successful at wrapping big ideas into impactful vignettes, although there are some points that move so fast they feel inconsequential.

The album is all the more impressive because her words and music are meticulously calculated, expertly arranged and still filled with feeling.

Puberty 2’s only four-minute plus song was far and away its weakest, but here the songs are short, richly melodic, with layers of detail packed in--like super-compressed sad-pop bombs--and topped by Miyawaki’s vocals, at once commanding and plaintive.

While Be The Cowboy hears Mitski traverse new sounds, new voices, and the anxieties of growing older, it’s clear the wisdom was already there.

Decidedly more disco for Mitski, Be the Cowboy is a showdown of electrowave and her signature fretwork that brings a pop pep to heartbreak and humanity’s greatest gluttonies. With that formidable force of a voice, she forces us all to be the cowboy and lament for a while.

If at times things veer towards needy, the sum of the set is saved by how real it all feels. [Sep 2018, p.92]

Throughout this masterclass in artful self-scrutiny, that tightrope is Mitski's domain. [Sep 2018, p.115]

Only three of the album's 14 tracks exceed two-and-a-half minutes, but Mitski manages to pack so much into those scant running times that they play more like miniature suites.

There’s such a rush to these songs and, resultingly, it feels like Mitski is hurrying to capture something before it dissolves into smoke. It’s ephemeral because life is.

Be the Cowboy largely dispenses with the distortion of Mitski’s guitar-oriented recent work, getting all the fuzz out with intro track “Geyser.” What’s left are short and thwarted pop songs. (Only two are longer than three minutes.)

Specifically, Mitski focuses on the loneliness of a "lone ranger" lifestyle and expresses it profoundly through the musical choices accentuating her lo-fi indie rock aesthetic.

Be the Cowboy may not hit the highs Mitski is capable of hitting, but it's still a solid effort from one of today's best artists.