In September 2019, Mitski played the final show of her tour at the Central Park SummerStage in New York. A few weeks earlier, she announced that this would be her “last show indefinitely.” The news sent shockwaves through her fan base. Was Mitski really quitting music for good?
Over the next two years, she made one-off contributions to film soundtracks and an album accompaniment to a graphic novel. But in November 2021, she announced a new album called Laurel Hell, giving us a definitive answer to the question: nope, false alarm.
Following five years of nonstop touring, Mitski chose Nashville as a new home base, moving here in early 2020. In a recent interview with Vulture, she explains that one reason she chose the city is because it would offer her access to recording studios; she did some of the work on the new LP at The Bomb Shelter in East Nashville. In early February of this year, Laurel Hell debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Every date on her tour — which stops at the Ryman on March 31 — is sold out. In June, she’s opening for Harry Styles at the 90,000-capacity Wembley Stadium in London. These commercial feats signal new career heights for the already revered “alternative” artist.
Laurel Hell acts as another chapter in the Mitski cinematic universe, and is an apt follow-up to 2018’s phenomenal Be the Cowboy. The songs on Laurel Hell are enormous, and the lyrics delve further into the isolation she has found in her cult status as the Sad Girl Supreme of TikTok, where fans have made more than 2.5 million videos using her songs. Along with being an articulate songwriter, Mitski gives fans exactly what so many of us want from our music — vulnerability. The raw honesty exuded in her work has that rare power of being able to break you open and empty you of the feelings that seem too hard to face. You could call it catharsis, but this is more than just music for wailing into a pillow.
Mitski deals in endings like breakups and rock-bottom realizations, and does so with an unflinching honesty. On the elegiac Laurel Hell track “I Guess,” she mourns a relationship, singing: “I guess this is the end / I’ll have to learn how to be someone else / It’s been you and me since before I was me.” The lines are simple, but they offer empathy and a sort of deliverance from deep sadness in a way that only Joni Mitchell or Mitski can.
With this album cycle, she’s spoken openly about the pressures of fame and the impulse to quit the music machine. In “Working for the Knife,” she takes a critical look at the grind of life and creativity. In a morose voice, she sings: “I cry at the start of every movie / I guess ’cause I wish I was making things, too.” The angst comes through as she parses how her identity is closely bound to her ability to work and make music that’s meant to be sold. It’s a humanizing moment, and a relatable one, too, for anyone frustrated with making art or supporting capitalism.
What’s new on this record is Hall & Oates-inspired pop production with lots of frantic synths and thumping beats. What’s missing is any indication of Mitski’s fuzzy DIY roots: Gone are the crunchy guitars and screamed verses from old fan favorites like “Drunk Walk Home” and “My Body’s Made of Crushed Little Stars.” But this new direction isn’t devoid of fun. She provides dance vibes on the standout “Stay Soft,” a song that makes a case against heart-wide-open vulnerability. “You stay soft / Get beaten / Only natural to harden up,” she sings; toughen up, or bear the consequences.
Mitski’s most mature record yet, Laurel Hell considers the trappings of culturally anointed binaries. We see ourselves as either soft or hard; in love or heartbroken; working or not working. The record considers whether the gyrations we go through to fit into these rigidly defined states are ever worth it. On the deceptively peppy “Should’ve Been Me,” Mitski sings, “Must be lonely loving someone trying to find their way out of a maze.” Besides being a stellar pop album that sees an already brilliant artist top herself, Laurel Hell is a companion for moving through life’s mazes — a guide for fans in a world on fire.
