She first cemented herself as an indie darling and favorite of the Bandcamp community, coming up in New York City's DIY scene and self-releasing two albums before landing an independent record deal. The 32-year-old (who was born in Japan to a Japanese mother and American father and spent her youth moving around internationally due to her father's work) has released music steadily since studying composition at SUNY Purchase College's conservatory program. Whether or not you're familiar with her, Mitski has in recent years become one of the most pop-star-like phenoms in the indie world. Thousands have crowned her their guardian angel of sorts because of how much her narrative-driven songwriting resonates. ![]() Although she may sound like an ethereal priestess that some lovelorn religion prays to, she's in fact one of the biggest names in indie rock. She's an idol to hopeless romantics consumed by their pining and willing to do anything for love, no matter the cost. 4 issue of Billboard.Mitski is the patron saint of introverts, a paragon for people who can experience existential loneliness at times but also feel nourished by a night spent inside, alone. This article originally appeared in the Aug. “I’m going to keep being a musician for as long as people let me, so by the time I put out seven or eight albums, maybe people will realize I’m not putting out music because I’m Asian.” She’s doing it, she adds, because “I can’t do anything else.” Yet she can’t help but be proud about the growing presence of Asians in popular culture: She’s quick to note the big-budget, Asian-led film Crazy Rich Asians opens in August, as does the Asian-coming-of-age flick To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, which hits Netflix the same day Be the Cowboy arrives. She has repeated in many interviews that she doesn’t want to just talk about being Japanese - something that would reinforce the idea that she’s an indie-rock token. With her Asian heritage, Mitski is aware she’s an outlier even in the current indie-rock scene, which is now less talked about as a boys club thanks to rising acts like Snail Mail and Soccer Mommy. “The hope is that 15 years from now, when I’m too tired to tour, I will already have that other musical job set up,” she says. (“You get a discount on taxes because you give the government money that you’ll get back later,” she explains.) She has also started writing songs for others, including Canadian pop singer Allie X. “I never thought I’d be this cliche, but I’m really like, ‘Wait, do I want children?’” She’s now big on investing money and recommends a SEP IRA for the self-employed. “I’m thinking about now, and it’s crazy,” she says. Her music and videos play with fantasies of settling down, and as Mitski gets older, she has found they increasingly mirror her actual desires. Mitski photographed on Jat North Brooklyn Farms in Brooklyn. On “Lonesome Love,” Mitski whispers, almost unemotionally, “Nobody fucks me like me.” This line, she says, is “true.” “Me and My Husband” seems to invite speculation about her love life, though Mitski says it’s fictional and that she only “wanted to use that idea of a stereotypical housewife.” Where Puberty 2 centered on a teen heroine, Be the Cowboy takes a more grown-up, boundary-pushing perspective. ![]() I don’t want my relationship with them to jeopardize their privacy.” But the people that come into my life or that I love, they didn’t make that choice or choose this life. “I accept all the consequences of what I do because I want to make music,” she says. ![]() But as open as she may be with her emotions, Mitski is guarded about her personal life. Its first single, “Nobody,” where Mitski bemoans, “I know no one will save me,” has garnered 1.3 million on-demand U.S. Be the Cowboy isn’t a total departure from Puberty 2 - there are plenty of the lonely-heart anthems that first drew fans.
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