Be The Cowboy
by Mitski

From sguy157 01/18/2019 09:46 | #229901 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

(Warning: this comment is kinda long.)
I'll be honest, this album took some time to grow on me, as I had some expectations about it before listening. But eventually, I came to appreciate it and thought that it was pretty solid. Around the end of 2018, I was a bit surprised to see this record very high up in most "best of 2018" lists, sometimes getting a perfect rating, and even earning the title "album of the year" from many music sites. So I thought that I might have missed something, and decided to revisit the record.

While I still think that it's good, I still don't seem to enjoy the album to the extent that others do. Now, I'm not trying to be negative. I like Mitski and I'm super happy to see her do well! But I just think that there are things that hold this project back, the main culprit being the track lengths. At times, some songs seem like they could be really great, but their brevity results in them having little impact instead. Many songs seem to end abruptly, sometimes right when it feels like the music could be going somewhere interesting. It feels like running a race and you're making amazing time - but halfway through you just lose all of your energy and stop in your tracks. For me, one example of this is "Come Into the Water."

But basically, that's my only complaint. I don't mean to seem too harsh, because I do think that this album is good! There a good amount of genuinely moving moments on here, especially the closing track "Two Slow Dancers." Truly deep, gorgeous, and filled to the brim with emotion. And "Nobody" is a great track too, very fun to jam out to. In addition, there are some cases where I think that the short track length works well, such as with "Geyser." That track flows very nicely!

Overall, this is a good record, and is definitely worth a listen. It's not perfect, but maybe I'm still missing something. Let me know if I am! Either way, it shows an enormous amount of potential. If Mitski takes her ideas from this album and then really expands on them and fleshes them out, I think that she can come out with something absolutely amazing. Excited for what she puts out in the future!

From corenfro TOP 100 COMMENTER 09/24/2018 13:45 | #221579 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

It's got some absolutely stellar moments and she's obviously incredibly talented. Some of the lyrics are cloying and borderline pretentious with the "look I'm quirky therefore cute" Death cab for cutie vibe.

I always feel like lyrics don't matter unless they distract. So since that's not a huge deal lets talk about the music. The short tracks are very in vogue today but I actually think her ideas would work better if she took more time to flesh them out. There are quite a few duds here, but also quite a few moments where I think "oh there's some good songwriting! oh.. and now it's gone"

I do hear St. Vincent (who is similarly if not more so wont to fly off the rails) but I certainly hear Angel Olsen (IMHO a superior songwriter, maybe not as impressive of a musician) I won't fault her for the uncanny similarities, because she clearly has been around longer and TBH I haven't heard ALL her earlier stuff but I'm just assuming it's similar. Just leaving this here for others who really liked this (which seems to be a ton)

Overall - probably her best album (that I've heard) and it seems just a few tweaks away from having a ton of repeat value for me. I understand that it's really good for some people though.

From cestuneblague TOP 100 COMMENTER 01/15/2019 23:36 | #229732 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Many lovely songs and with moments of near smack-your-headphones-off icy grandeur. "Washing Machine Heart" would top every chart in a just world and the deconstruction of the great American, self-aware mythmaking spectacle is admirably clever if starting to feel expected in this day of the anti-pop-star. But... something is missing that keeps this from being more than the sum of it's many wonderful individual parts. Skrapes the sky but never quite becomes the indelible supernova it seems destined to be. Still one of the year's best but also one of it's most frustrating.

This short and sweet style of alt pop is perfect for the modern day audiences and I can see exactly why this record does well. Every song flies by with only 2 songs being longer than 3 minutes which keeps us entertained for the full run time and is great in a world today where people really struggle to maintain concentration. When you combine this with some simple but effective instrumentation and a beautiful vocal performance you get a record that feels sweet and leaves a happy feeling behind once its finished. This record does have faults though and one of them is the sheer number of songs they are trying to cram onto here. I feel like there is no real time to connect to some of the tracks before they are gone and so some of the songs feel incomplete or like there is more of a story to tell there. I feel that the song structure could do with a little more variation as well and the instrumentals do sound a bit basic on tracks such as A Horse Named Cold Air amongst others. Overall, there are quite a few things that hold this record back for me but if I was looking for an enjoyable record to play without focusing on in depth then this would work quite well.

From Brad1770 TOP 100 COMMENTER 08/18/2018 07:15 | #219816 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Mitski's follow up to her 2016's superb break through album 'Puberty 2' takes everything that was great about that album and smashes it out of the park

Read my lips: 'Be The Cowboy ' is one of 2018's best albums

The opening salvo of "Geyser" , "Why Didn't You Stop Me? " , "Old Friend" and " A Pearl" is simply breathtaking , with so many cracking tracks to follow: "Me and My Husband" , "Nobody" and the beautiful closer "Two Slow Dancer's" just to name a few

And I love the less is more approach to her song structures on this album: there are 14 tracks here and only 3 exceed 2 minutes 30 seconds

I'll see your Puberty 2 and raise you Be The Cowboy

Pure Mitski Genius

80/100