Japanese Breakfast released her single and music video Be Sweet, today, her first in four years when she released the critically acclaimed Soft Sounds from Another Planet. Be Sweet has elements of an ’80s throwback, and is the second track on her next album Jubilee; their full length comes out June 4, 2021 via Bloomington, Indiana’s Dead Oceans. Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast wrote Be Sweet with Jack Tatum of Wild Nothing.
Michelle explains: “After spending the last five years writing about grief, I wanted our follow up to be about joy. For me, a third record should feel bombastic and so I wanted to pull out all the stops for this one.”
Be Sweet takes her experimental dream pop elements and carries them further. The production is very clean… a moving bass line grove, staccato guitar adding to the percussive sounds, fast chorus-laden electric guitar strumming that helps provide a backdrop. Adding to the 80s sound, the drums are in a large room, and the snare has repeated 8th note delays. Both the synths in the chorus and bridge and the backing “Be sweet to me, baby!” vocals solidify the throwback in this song. This song is extraordinary, and expresses a desire to “believe in something.”
The music video for Be Sweet is fun and reflects the ’80s influence in the song, complete with neon lights. Michelle Zauner is searching for aliens in a corn field with a partner like X-file detectives. Then in the end, aliens arrive, taking her partner as Michelle looks up into the alien craft.
Jubilee track-listing:
- Paprika
- Be Sweet
- Kokomo, IN
- Slide Tackle
- Posing In Bondage
- Sit
- Savage Good Boy
- In Hell
- Tactics
- Posing For Cars
My new album is called Jubilee. It is about joy. ?
— Japanese Breakfast (@Jbrekkie) March 2, 2021
Pre order: https://t.co/rza6NqofcP
Out June 4 2021 pic.twitter.com/PhZ0L7sny2
Michelle Zauner’s memoir, Crying In H Mart
Michelle wrote a memoir titled Crying In H Mart. It’s about her experiences growing up as a Korean American in Eugene, Oregon, and the difficulties she faced. It was her mother’s diagnosis with terminal cancer when she was 25 that, “forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.” This much needed 256 page book is described:
“With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.”
Book description of Crying In H Mart (Amazon)
Crying In H Mart is being released on April 20, 2021, and is available for pre-order at Penguin Random House and Amazon.
Japanese Breakfast links:
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