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Albumism’s 50 Best Albums of 2018 | #4: Mitski’s ‘Be the Cowboy’

December 2, 2018 Albumism Staff

EXPLORE the full album index here

#4
Mitski
| Be the Cowboy
Dead Oceans

According to Liz Itkowski: “Mitski’s Be the Cowboy is a fabulous album, one you didn’t know you needed. More comfortable with her anxieties, and articulating them beautifully, she has taken a pop turn on her fifth studio affair. She is more playful, content with her discontentedness, but still deeply feeling.

Mitski’s songwriting is consistently her strength, and Be the Cowboy really shows it off. She has the compassion of a writer; the eye of someone seeing beneath the surface. In her book on writing, Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott writes, “...this is what good writing allows us to notice sometimes. You can see the underlying essence only when you strip away the busyness, and then some surprising connections appear.” Mitski celebrates the mundane, dressing it up with moving music and juicy insights.”

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