If you haven’t heard, then allow me the pleasure of telling you – Mitski released her seventh studio album, “The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We” a little more than a month ago. You’ve likely heard her hit single, “My Love is Mine All Mine,” all over Instagram and TikTok, even if you’re not familiar with the artist herself. And if you’re not familiar with Mitski, well, then allow me the even greater pleasure of introducing you! The American singer-songwriter began her career focusing on DIY style and Indie rock, self-releasing her first two albums while still a university student, but she’s continued to experiment with different sounds and styles since her genre-defying 2018 album “Be the Cowboy” first won her mainstream purchase. While her last album, “Laurel Hell” (2022), consisted mostly of synth and dream pop, “The Land is Inhospitable” takes an unexpected left turn into a stripped-down acoustic, Americana folk.
On TikTok and other social media, Mitski can often be seen lumped in with a genre users dub as “Sad Girl Music.” The kind of music, users insist, is meant to play in the background of a young lady’s romanticized suffering, and very often, aren’t allowed to do more than that. In the past, Mitski has complained of this limiting perception. In a 2018 interview with “The Fader” magazine, she says, “The point of my music isn’t to make you cry. I’m not trying to make torture porn.” She feels this misrepresents her real artistic intentions, adding “I want to express, I don’t know, the whole gamut of human experiences.” Her intention and incredible ability to do just that had never been clearer than now. In just 34 minutes, she unflinchingly delves into the depths of human suffering but, even more impressively, braves to search for the remedy. This album sounds warmer and more reflective than any of her previous works. This is the kind of album you play on a Sunday, that liminal time between the fun of yesterday and the business of tomorrow.
Mitski, in this album, delivers what I guess you could classify as “sad songs.” But of course, they’re more than that. They’re about addiction, shame, guilt, and grief. In her first song, “Bug Like An Angel,” her warm voice sings about the end of a beverage, with the occasional word or phrase echoed by a choir. Here, she begins the habit she often repeats throughout the album of speaking to the audience as if giving advice. “Did you go and make promises you can’t keep?” she asks before chiding “Rookie mistake” because “they break you right back.” The song “I Don’t Like My Mind” describes a phenomenon all too familiar to many, lying awake at night, remembering every embarrassing thing you’ve ever done. She regretfully relates an anecdote of eating an entire cake until she felt sick to her stomach, the memory of the shameful over-indulgence haunting her still. Memories are again the topic in “When Memories Snow,” this time showing the overwhelming weight of her recollections in a climax of discordant instruments as she wonders how she could get away from them, “If I break,” she asks, “Could I go on break?”
Winter metaphors are utilized again in “The Frost,” likening it to a dust that has settled over her as she mourns the loss of a friend. Yet the melancholy song about grief doesn’t invite the audience to give up or languish. Mitski portrays the temptation to give up hope and give into cynicism in “The Deal.” She informs the audience that there might be a way to numb the suffering, but not without a grave cost. In this haunting tale, a bird speaks to Mitski, like the Raven once spoke to Edgar Allen Poe, “Your pain is eased,” but “You’re a cage without me, you’ll never be free.”
So, how can we be free of the suffering of shame and grief? In other words, is there any way to escape the Inhospitable Land? Maybe the answers to the problems presented in the captivatingly cryptic songs can be answered by changing ourselves and the way we relate to each other. Because, after all, aren’t we inhospitable too?
In “Heaven,” Mitski's most sweeping and unabashed love song to date, she reflectively sings over a sweeping orchestra, “Something set free is running through the night.” Yes, even though “The dark awaits us all around the corner,” we can find solace and comfort in the present with each other. Impermanence can’t spoil its gifts, as Mitski makes clear in “The Star.” Over a transcendent production that can only be described as sparkly, she promises to hold onto the love from a relationship that has since ended, the same way that a star still shines in the sky for our eyes even though it has already burned out lightyears away. Yes, love might be the only answer to our suffering, as Mitski sings in the warm melody that has already become beloved by so many, “My Love is Mine All Mine.” Mitski invites us to consider the transformative power of love, whose effects will last longer than the mortal body of its original vessel.
It makes sense then why Mitski chooses to conclude this album with the song “I Love Me After You.” In a strong marching voice, she describes her nighttime routine full of the cliché hallmarks of “self-love:” skincare, drinking water, and laughter. But then she sings “I love me after you.” It sounds strange to the ears in a time where advice like “put yourself first” is so ubiquitous, but her suggestion here seems to be that self-love and to love others aren’t in tension with one another. There is a way to put someone else first that isn’t pathetic and doesn’t have to be at the expense of yourself. Perhaps it’s only with that love we have for ourselves and others that we can overcome the foreboding physical world around us. Armed with this knowledge she sings “let the darkness see me,” she’s not scared as she announces her triumph, “I’m king of all the land.”
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.