Mitski’s 10 Best Songs
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
The post Mitski’s 10 Best Songs appeared first on Consequence.
When listening to Mitski, you get the sense that each choice she makes is deliberate. Her words are acute and specific; when she expresses her feelings, she does so in ways that are both universal and deeply personal at the same time. Her melodies play by their own rules, often elongated and delightfully piercing. And whether she’s on the guitar, the piano, or above a cascade of synths and strings, there’s always a trace of the unexpected.
Mitski rose to prominence in New York City’s DIY scene in the early 2010s, releasing her breakout third album Bury Me at Makeout Creek on the indie label Double Double Whammy before moving to Dead Oceans for 2016’s Puberty 2. And though her later records began to feature a more polished sound, Mitski has always been in search of describing the indescribable, of articulating that which eats away at you and liberates you.
Much of her music revolves around desire and longing — even now, with the release of her sixth studio album Laurel Hell, Mitski is still delivering lines that can sum up a generation of artists’ existential angst, as well as the fraught and complicated demands of relationships.
Within each of her significant studio albums are tracks that cut straight to the heart, and they consistently demonstrate musicianship and artistic craft with unparalleled skill and vision. That’s a big statement about any artist, but Mitski’s outstanding discography puts her in an entirely different class.
We make a lot of Top 10 lists here at Consequence, and believe us when we say that ranking Mitski’s ten best songs was an incredibly difficult task. Nonetheless, we’re here to celebrate Mitski, and these are ten songs that sum up exactly what she’s about.
Check out the ranking below, and scroll to the end for a playlist of all 10 tracks.
— Paolo Ragusa
10. “A Pearl”
There’s a delicacy in the way Mitski approaches toxicity, so often juxtaposed with some ripping guitar work. Turning all that trauma into this pearl — hard, shimmering, beautiful, but the result of an irritant trapped under ages of pressure — demonstrates her poet’s touch. The song rocks at its heights, but it’s also terribly anguished, a prime example of Mitski’s push-pull prowess. — Ben Kaye
09. “Love Me More”
Mitski’s vocal performance on “Love Me More” is one of her finest; amidst many carefully constructed chord shifts, Mitski remains steadfast and powerful, representing a desire for more with urgency, enthusiasm, and impressive command. She builds herself up and makes herself small repeatedly, and by the song’s climactic end, she unravels ever so slightly, all before landing on a somewhat disaffected request for a love that’s “enough to clean me up/ Clean me up, clean me up…”
And not only is “Love Me More” one of the most pop-centered and accessible songs in her discography, it does so without compromising Mitski’s unique ability to reflect emotional life through expressive musical choices. — P.R.
08. “Townie”
Bracing and immediate, this is Mitski at the peak of her lo-fi powers. While her sound has more recently migrated toward the dancefloor, driven by a more polished, pop sensibility, “Townie” finds Mitski in the mosh pit, drunk on “a love that falls as fast as a body from the balcony.” Though Mitski’s songwriting persona often finds her yearning, this is an all-gas-no-brakes rocker that places Mitski firmly in the driver’s seat, hurtling like a daredevil head-first into romantic self-destruction. — Spencer Dukoff
07. “Strawberry Blond”
When viewed as part of Mitski’s larger catalog, “Strawberry Blond” serves as a precursor of sorts to “Your Best American Girl.” Both songs are about loving someone who can’t (or simply won’t) love you back, and both serve as pointed, personal commentaries about Western beauty standards, race, and alienation.
But while the latter is a guitar-driven gut-punch, this standout track from 2013’s Retired From Sad, New Career in Business sounds almost bubbly and fleeting. Hand claps, plinking piano keys, and flutes attempt to keep up with Mitski’s light, fast-paced vocals, a sticky sweetness colliding with the lyrics’ deep heartache and disappointment. — S.D.
06. “I Bet On Losing Dogs”
Mitski’s “I Bet On Losing Dogs” oscillates between joy and profound disappointment, almost as if she’s realizing her sealed fate in relationships, while also wearing it with pride. As she expresses this doomed dynamic and likens it to racing dogs that lose, she repeats a motif of “looking into their eyes when they’re down,” and later, her partner “looking in my eyes when I cum,” reflecting an empathetic and almost magnetic attraction towards the battered, bruised, and vulnerable. It’s a beautiful and incredibly vivid meditation on her own habits in relationships, and the fraught feelings that come along with these losing dogs. — P.R.
05. “First Love / Late Spring”
If love is like a drug, then by that logic, too much of it at once can paralyze you. Mitski evokes the debilitating anxiety of making yourself so vulnerable to a lover on “First Love / Late Spring,” a highlight from Bury Me at Makeout Creek. You can almost hear Mitski dropping to her knees in relinquishment. “Please don’t say you love me,” she sings, the chorus layered with group vocals that seem to mimic her blithering dread.
Throughout “First Love / Late Spring,” you can hear sustained chords from a pipe organ-like instrument, seemingly nodding to both Wagner’s bridal chorus and Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. As Mitski threatens to leap from a ledge in desperation, “First Love / Late Spring” reminds us that even the most canonically joyful moments in life can feel equally frightening. — Abby Jones
04. “Francis Forever”
Yes, it’s power-chord bummer rock reminiscent of Nirvana and The Pixies, but it’s unmistakably Mitski. The song’s narrator is desperate to be seen and to be understood, not by society at-large, but by one specific person. Maybe that’s a former lover, or a family member, or a friend — it doesn’t matter. In two minutes and 30 seconds, Mitski captures a loneliness we’ve all felt at one time or another. It’s her magic trick — making the personal seem universal and vice-versa — that puts Mitski in the top-tier of modern songwriters. — S.D.
03. “Two Slow Dancers”
Devastating in its restraint, there is no more potent ballad in Mitski’s repertoire than this closing track from Be The Cowboy. It’s also one of her most romantic songs, though not without a sprinkle of cynicism mixed in for good measure. Yes, nothing lasts forever, and “Two Slow Dancers” is about coming to terms with impermanence. But is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all? Mitski doesn’t offer an easy answer. — S.D.
02. “Your Best American Girl”
Encapsulating everything she is as both artist and human, it’s fitting that “Your Best American Girl” ended up being Mitski’s breakout single. Lyrically, it’s an anti-love song wrapped in the complexities of race and culture, delivered with a dagger of a chorus as catchy as it is devastating. Sonically, it’s a masterwork of the quiet-loud dynamics the songwriter so deftly uses to catapult emotion. – B. Kaye
01. “Nobody”
Mitski’s “Nobody” has not only become finer with age, it’s an example of what she does best: there’s a universe of emotions, a deep longing for intimacy and connection, for somebody, crammed into a three-minute disco track, immediately relatable, dance-worthy, and devastating at the same time.
There are some incredible lines of poetry throughout “Nobody”: “I’ve been big and small/ And big and small/ And big and small again/ And still nobody wants me,” and “Venus, planet of love/ Was destroyed by global warming/ Did its people want too much too?” are just a couple examples, but each phrase of desire is the kind that sticks with you for long afterwards.
So long, in fact, that it’s remarkable to consider “Nobody” came out two years before a global pandemic. Mitski’s humble request felt significant in 2018, but it’s even more relevant now, considering lines like, “My God, I’m so lonely/ So I open the window/ To hear sounds of people…”
After global lockdowns, fractured attempts at reconnecting, and a general sense of doom, the cathartic romp that is “Nobody” is a gift, a piece of music about isolation with the capacity to unite us all. And when the song’s climactic key change sets in and Mitski’s vocals truly begin to soar, she turns that profound loneliness into something indestructible. — P.R.
Ed. note: Catch Mitski on tour; tickets are available via Ticketmaster.
Mitski’s 10 Best Songs Playlist:
Mitski’s 10 Best Songs
Consequence Staff
Popular Posts
Rudy Giuliani's Appearance on The Masked Singer Prompts Judges to Walk Out
Joni Mitchell Removes Music from Spotify: "I Stand in Solidarity with Neil Young"
Dwayne Johnson, Kevin James, and More Support Joe Rogan as Criticism Mounts
Ezra Miller Threatens Ku Klux Klan Members: "I Suggest Killing Yourselves" or "We'll Do It For You"
