For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)
The indie-pop band fronted by Michelle Zauner released their third album, 2021’s *Jubilee*, to massive critical acclaim and their first Grammy nomination. After spending five years writing *Crying in H Mart*, her best-selling memoir about grief, Zauner devoted the record to joy and catharsis, all triumphant horns and swooning synths. But for its follow-up, the ambitious polymath found herself drawn to darker, knottier themes—loneliness, desire, contemporary masculinity. She also gravitated to the indie-rock sounds of her past, recruiting producer and guitarist Blake Mills, known for his work with artists like Fiona Apple, Feist, and Weyes Blood. “\[For *Jubilee*\] we wanted to have bombastic, big instrumentation with lots of strings and horns; I wanted this to come back to a more guitar-oriented record,” Zauner tells Apple Music. “I think I’m going back to my roots a little bit more.” When she began to write the band’s fourth record in 2022, Zauner found inspiration in an unlikely literary juxtaposition: Greek mythology, gothic romance classics, and works that she wryly deemed as part of the “incel canon” à la Bret Easton Ellis’ *American Psycho*. From such seemingly disparate sources emerged the gorgeously bleak songs of *For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)*, whose title is presented with an implied wink, acknowledging the many women songwriters whose work is reduced to “sad girl music.” Indeed, the atmosphere on *For Melancholy Brunettes* is less straightforwardly sad, and more…well, it’s complicated. On “Leda,” the story of a strained relationship unfolds by way of Greek myths in which Zeus takes the form of a swan to seduce a Spartan queen. “Little Girl,” a deceptively sweet-sounding ballad about a father estranged from his daughter, opens with a spectacularly abject image: “Pissing in the corner of a hotel suite.” And on the fascinatingly eerie “Mega Circuit,” on which legendary drummer Jim Keltner lays down a mean shuffle, Zauner paints a twisted tableau of modern manhood—muddy ATVs, back-alley blowjobs, “incel eunuchs”—somehow managing to make it all sound achingly poetic with lines like, “Deep in the soft hearts of young boys so pissed off and jaded/Carrying dull prayers of old men cutting holier truths.” The universe Zauner conveys on *For Melancholy Brunettes* is sordid and strange, though not without beauty in the form of sublime guitar sounds or striking turns of phrase. (“I never knew I’d find my way into the arms/Of men in bars,” she sings on the wistful “Men in Bars,” which includes the album’s only feature from…Jeff Bridges?!) As for the title’s bone-dry humor—sardonically zesty castanet and tambourine add extra irony to “Winter in LA,” on which Zauner imagines herself as a happier woman, writing sweet love songs instead of…these.
Michelle Zauner’s lovely, pensive, capital-R Romantic fourth album takes a step back from autobiography to examine the performances and peril of fame itself.
The fourth album from Michelle Zauner plays like an open session in the artist’s salon, forsaking her renowned juxtaposition between intimate and transcendental soundscapes and welcoming in a more evocative and complex lyricism.
Michelle Zauner’s nuanced songwriting shines on Japanese Breakfast’s ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (and Sad Women)’ – read NME's album review
Her soothing voice, though very lovely, doesn’t always sell the cleverness of her lyrics
Michelle Zauner's follow up to Japanese Breakfast's breakthrough record Jubilee, For Melancholy Brunettes finds beauty in softer, darker sounds.
It’s fair to say that the last few years have been a bit of a whirlwind for Japanese Breakfast songwriter Michelle Zauner. After two albums of dreamy
Michelle Zauner addresses big themes on her band’s fourth album, but her sharp writing isn’t best served by wistful arrangements
The album’s production is imbued with a rich sense of depth and warmth, representing a significant sonic step forward.
On For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), Japanese Breakfast quiet the fanfare but deliver enough quality to stay relevant.
For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) by Japanese Breakfast album review by Michael Mannix for Northern Transmissions, the LP drops 3/21
Michelle Zauner is in the top tier of contemporary songwriters. Plus, Greentea Peng defies Gen Z tinniness, and this week’s best new songs
A wonderfully fragile collection takes off with Honey Water – not to mention an unexpected appearance from the actor Jeff Bridges