Japanese Breakfast
“Nothing thicker than a knife’s blade separates happiness from melancholy.”
That line from Virginia Woolf’s classic Orlando is also the thesis of the latest album by Japanese Breakfast, For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women). Released in March via Dead Oceans, the record reflects the fallout of an extended period in the spotlight.
Japanese Breakfast is a rock-and-pop four-piece led by Michelle Zauner, launched in 2013. The group has origins in the Pacific Northwest, where Zauner grew up, and Philadelphia, where she graduated from Bryn Mawr. In 2021, the project released Jubilee, its third album and most critically acclaimed one to date. Just two weeks earlier, Zauner published her memoir Crying in H Mart, which unraveled her complex relationship with her Korean American identity in the wake of her mother’s death. The book rocketed to the top of The New York Times’ bestseller list and stayed there for more than a year. Japanese Breakfast received a coveted musical guest slot on Saturday Night Live, while Zauner was interviewed on The Tonight Show, Good Morning America and other TV mainstays.
But with a newfound level of fame often comes an exacerbated sense of anxiety, as Zauner discovered. If Jubilee captured the brightness and joy of a sunny summer day, For Melancholy Brunettes is a rainy afternoon in early spring. It’s decidedly more mellow than its predecessor — more akin to the group’s earlier work with the addition of strings and harps throughout. The references are classic and romantic: “The Birth of Venus,” Orlando Innamorato, Leda and the Swan.
Zauner is a master at combining the profound and the personal, slipping in and out of characters and her own thoughts between lyrics. The album may be dedicated to sad women, but most of its subjects are troubled men. She plays many characters, from a sailor seduced by siren song on “Orlando in Love” to a teenage boy seduced by violence in internet subcultures on “Mega Circuit.” Perhaps the most compelling one Zauner inhabits is a version of herself. Standout song “Picture Window” captures her own preoccupation with death and the struggle of explaining the depths of anxiety to a compassionate but inexperienced partner. “Do you not conceive of my death at every waking minute,” Zauner asks, “while your life just passes you by?” She doesn’t wait for an answer before diving into the song’s echoing refrain: “All of my ghosts are real / All of my ghosts are my home.”
Near the end of the album lies the only guest appearance, the first on a Japanese Breakfast record, and unbilled in the title of the track. Jeff Bridges (yes, that one) duets in a soulful serenade on “Men in Bars.” It’s a surprise during a full playthrough of the album, but not an unpleasant one. Zauner plays a different role in every song, and each is sad in a different way. It’s a state of being she’s become familiar with — maybe too familiar, as she mentions in songs like “Winter in LA.”
But without it, she wouldn’t be the same, and she’s used the experience to guide her in new directions. For Melancholy Brunettes was finished in late 2023, but Zauner and her bandmates agreed to take 2024 off. She spent the year in Seoul, reconnecting to her roots and fully immersing herself in the language and culture, gathering material that could become a new book and gaining valuable perspective on how she wants to approach art going forward. Now they’ve dived headfirst into the cycle around the album, which has involved TV appearances and a tour that includes stops at Coachella and Monday’s show at the Ryman.
