Mitski

Born Mitsuki Laycock September 27, 1990 Mie Prefecture, Japan Origin New York City, U.S. Genres Indie rock alternative pop art pop Occupations Singer-songwriter musician Years active 2012–present Mitsuki Laycock (born September 27, 1990), also known as Mitski Miyawaki, and known professionally as Mitski, is an American singer-songwriter. She self-released her first two albums, Lush (2012), and Retired from Sad, New Career in Business (2013), while studying composition at Purchase College's Conservatory of Music.[3] Her third studio album, Bury Me at Makeout Creek, was released in 2014 on the label Double Double Whammy. Mitski signed with Dead Oceans in 2015 and released Puberty 2 (2016), Be the Cowboy (2018), and Laurel Hell (2022), the last of which made the top ten in several countries. In 2022, The Guardian dubbed her the "best young songwriter" in the United States of America.[4] That same year, she co-composed "This Is a Life" with Son Lux for the film Everything Everywhere All at Once, which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. Her seventh studio album, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, was released in 2023. The album's third single, "My Love Mine All Mine", became Mitski's first song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100.[5][6] Her eighth studio album, titled “Nothing’s About to Happen to Me” will be released on February 27, 2026. Early life Mitsuki Laycock was born on September 27, 1990,[10] in Mie Prefecture, Japan, to an American father and a Japanese mother;[11][12] she now uses her mother's surname, going by Mitski Miyawaki.[13][14] She has a sister.[11] Her first language was Japanese.[15] She moved frequently while growing up due to her father's job at the United States Department of State, also living in Turkey, China, Malaysia, the Czech Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo before settling in the United States.[16][17][18] In her teens, while back in Japan, she briefly worked with a talent manager who she has said wanted her to be a "cute young girl [...] pop idol".[19] She sang in a choir in high school and was 18 when she wrote her first song on the piano while living in Ankara, Turkey.[13] Career 2012–2017: Student albums, Bury Me at Makeout Creek and Puberty 2 After enrolling at Hunter College to study film, Mitski decided to pursue music instead and transferred to SUNY Purchase College's Conservatory of Music, where she studied studio composition. During her time at Purchase, she recorded and self-released her piano-based first and second albums, Lush (2012) and Retired from Sad, New Career in Business (2013), as student projects.[20][21] While there, Mitski met Patrick Hyland, who has produced her albums after Lush. In 2013, she collaborated with indie-rock artists Mike Rasimas providing vocals for the original song Ego and a cover of "Nightcall" by Kavinsky.[22] After graduating, she served as the vocalist for the short-lived prog-metal band Voice Coils[23] and began work on her third studio album, Bury Me at Makeout Creek, which was released on November 11, 2014, through Double Double Whammy. The album was reissued with four bonus tracks on April 7, 2015, through Don Giovanni Records. The album's raw, impulsive guitar represented a sonic departure from the orchestral and classical piano sounds of her first two albums.[14] It garnered acclaim from numerous publications.[24][25][26][27] However, it failed to become a significant commercial success.[28] On December 22, 2015, Mitski signed with Dead Oceans.[29] She announced her fourth studio album, Puberty 2, on March 1, 2016, and shared the lead single, "Your Best American Girl".[30] She released another single, "Happy", before the release of the album on June 17.[31] Produced by Hyland, the album was recorded over two weeks at Acme Studios in Westchester County, New York.[32] The album received widespread acclaim from music critics.[33] "Your Best American Girl" was named the 13th best song of the 2010s by Rolling Stone.[34] Her song "Francis Forever" was covered by Olivia Olson as the character Marceline the Vampire Queen in a 2016 episode of the Cartoon Network show Adventure Time.[35] On February 21, 2017, Pixies announced U.S. tour dates with Mitski as a supporting act.[36] On May 1, a compilation album consisting of 100 songs by various artists titled Our First 100 Days was released. It includes Mitski's cover of One Direction's song "Fireproof". The compilation aims to raise funds for organizations that support causes threatened by Donald Trump's proposed policies.[37] Mitski played a cover of the song in 2015, but that version has since been taken down.[38] Mitski also covered Frank Sinatra's 1951 classic "I'm a Fool to Want You" for the 7-Inches For Planned Parenthood compilation album.[39] On October 4, 2017, Lorde announced that Mitski would open for her on some dates on her Melodrama World Tour.[40] On November 1, a short film starring Mitski called Sitting was released.[41] 2018–2022: Be the Cowboy and Laurel Hell black and white photo of a young Asian-American woman with shoulder-length black hair singing. Mitski performing at a concert in Seattle in October 2018 On April 20, 2018, Mitski teamed up with the experimental band Xiu Xiu on the song "Between the Breaths" for the soundtrack of the sci-fi comedy film How to Talk to Girls at Parties, based on the short story of the same name.[42] On May 14, 2018, Mitski opened pre-orders for her fifth studio album, Be the Cowboy, and released the lead single, "Geyser", with an accompanying music video.[43] The second single and its video, "Nobody", was released on June 26, 2018,[44] which became an unexpected viral hit years after its release, largely due to TikTok.[45] The song’s chorus, where she repeatedly sings "Nobody", became widely used in TikTok trends, often paired with surreal memes or individuals running away from the camera.[46] This virality introduced Mitski’s music to a broader audience, leading to a significant streaming boost—Be the Cowboy re-entered Billboard’s Top 200 in 2021, three years after its release.[47] The third and final single to precede the album, "Two Slow Dancers", was released on August 9 alongside a lyric video.[48] Be the Cowboy was released on August 17, through Dead Oceans.[49] It was critically acclaimed and named the album of the year by Pitchfork,[50] Vulture,[51] and Consequence of Sound.[52] On tour in 2018, Mitski began incorporating choreography into her live performances inspired by Butoh, a form of dance theater developed in post-war Japan, in which "performers draw on chaotic internal emotions but depict them with precise, repetitive gestures." The approach reflected her wish to "give audiences something new" on her second headlining tour since Be the Cowboy's release, as well as a desire "to develop her own, idiosyncratic ways of maintaining a grip on an audience", since she'd learned "that the jumping around onstage, getting everyone pumped up, doesn't come naturally to me."[13] Mitski worked with performance artist Monica Mirabile to devise the tour's "highly stylized, sometimes unsettling" movements.[53][54] Butoh-influenced choreography was also used in her music video for "Working for the Knife".[55] In August 2019, Mitski ended her hiatus from social media to post a statement denying allegations made by a Tumblr user that she had been involved in a child trafficking ring: "I don't know the accuser, and I don't know how or why they have come to associate me with their trauma." In September 2019 at the final performance of her Be the Cowboy Tour in Central Park, Mitski announced that it would be her last indefinitely. She later talked about how she planned to quit music completely and "find another life". By early 2020, Mitski had changed her mind and decided to return to music, partly because she owed her label another album and partly for herself. She described making the decision to continue: "What it came down to was, ‘I have to do this even though it hurts me, because I love... This is who I am... I'm going to keep getting hurt, and I'm still going to do it, because this is the only thing I can do.’"[59] Mitski performing in 2022, incorporating Butoh-inspired choreography Mitski shared her song, "Cop Car", in January 2020,[60] a never-released piece from the soundtrack of The Turning.[61] She was featured in the song "Susie Save Your Love" from Allie X's album, Cape God, released in February 2020.[62] On October 29, 2020, it was announced that Mitski would provide the soundtrack to the graphic novel This Is Where We Fall. The sci-fi Western story written by Chris Miskiewicz and Vincent Kings "unpacks themes of theology, death, and the afterlife". Of the project, Mitski said, "It was exciting to make a soundtrack for a comic book, It allowed me to work outside of my usual songwriting form and try to approach it like a score, but without any of the cues that come with working alongside a moving image, which ended up being both freeing and challenging. I hope the end result helps to immerse you in the story!"[63] A country song called "The Baddy Man" was released as the first preview from the soundtrack on March 5, 2021. Z2 Comics released the album on cassette with the standard hardcover novel on May 5, 2021. A limited-edition deluxe vinyl was also released. At the moment, Z2 has no plans to put the soundtrack on streaming services.[64] On October 4, 2021, Mitski announced on her social media that she would be releasing a new single, "Working for the Knife", the next day as the lead single to her upcoming sixth studio album.[65] The song would later be named the 7th best song of 2021 by Pitchfork.[66] Soon after the song's release, Mitski announced her 2022 European and North American tour.[67] She followed it up with "The Only Heartbreaker" on November 9, 2021.[68] The same day, Mitski announced her sixth studio album, Laurel Hell, would be released just before her European and North American tour, called Laurel Hell Tour, on February 4, 2022.[69] On December 7, 2021, "Heat Lightning" was released as the third single from the album.[70] On January 12, 2022, "Love Me More" followed as the fourth single from Laurel Hell.[71] In March 2022, "The Only Heartbreaker" peaked at number-one on the Billboard Adult Alternative Airplay chart.[72] On March 4, 2022, Mitski was announced as one of the performers for the Glastonbury Festival, scheduled for June 22–26, 2022.[73] On April 19, 2022, Mitski's cover of "Glide", from the soundtrack of All About Lily Chou Chou, was released on streaming services. The song was previously available as a bonus track on physical versions of Laurel Hell and was used in the 2022 film After Yang. Mitski appears on the song "This Is a Life" from the soundtrack for the 2022 film Everything Everywhere All at Once.[74] The song also features David Byrne and Son Lux, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2023. 2023–2025: The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We Mitski performing at All Points East festival in 2024 On July 23, 2023, Mitski announced her seventh studio album, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, with information on the first single, "Bug Like an Angel", which was released on July 26. The news was revealed via a voice memo she recorded at Bomb Shelter Studio in Nashville, Tennessee, where the album was recorded. The voice memo was sent out to all subscribers of her newsletter.[75] The following two singles from the album, "Heaven" and "Star", were released on August 23, with the former premiering on BBC Radio 1. In order to promote the new album in August of 2023, Mitski announced a series of cinema experiences. These experiences involved a pre-release listening party for The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We alongside a screening of a film chosen personally by Mitski: these films included Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven, Donna Deitch’s Desert Hearts, Gus Van Sant’s Drugstore Cowboy and Federico Fellini’s La Strada.[76] Mitski also announced six concert dates set to take place in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and France. Mitski described these dates as "not a full-blown tour", but intimate and small enough to preview the album without elaborate stage production.[77][better source needed] She later added nineteen tour dates set to take place in the US in 2024.[78] In November 2023, it was announced that Mitski was attached to write lyrics and music for a Broadway adaptation of the 1983 novel The Queen's Gambit.[79] In March 2024, Mitski participated in the Spotify Singles series. Accompanied by Patrick Hyland on acoustic guitar and Jeni Magaña on double bass, she covered "Coyote, My Little Brother", originally by Pete Seeger, and recorded a version of "Buffalo Replaced."[80][81] Mitski released a concert film directed by Grant James, titled Mitski: The Land, shown in 630 cinemas across 30 countries in October 2025. It was filmed at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, over three nights of Mitski's 2024 tour for her album The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We.[82] She released a live album, The Land: The Live Album, featuring recordings from the film on October 16, 2025.[83] Mitski's cover of "Let My Love Open the Door" was featured on the soundtrack for the 2025 film A Big Bold Beautiful Journey.[84] 2026-present: Nothing’s About to Happen to Me On January 15, 2026, Mitski announced her eighth studio album titled, Nothing’s About to Happen to Me. The first single, titled “Where’s My Phone?” was released a day later, on January 16. Nothing’s About to Happen to Me will be released on February 27, 2026. Musical style E. Alex Jung described her as "an artist whose music feels like being ushered into a private opera house of melodrama" with lyrics full of "roiling fury, destructive impulses, humiliation, longing, heartache, and hunger".[15] Angie Martoccio of Rolling Stone described her earlier albums as a "wry running commentary on twentysomething angst, raw desire, and often unrequited love". Lucy Dacus, a singer-songwriter who has at times opened for Mitski, described her music as "really visceral… She's connected to a part in herself that wants to scream. Maybe you don't live in a space where you can scream, or maybe you don't have the words for what has happened to you. Mitski provides a space for that."[59] Similarly, Mitski has described her music as a place where people "can put all of their feelings, their ugliness, that doesn't have a place in their own lives." 中文介绍 作为全球市场分量最终的美国流行乐坛， 亚洲面孔十分罕见。尤其是在美国摇滚音 乐圈中，亚洲面孔更是屈指可数。而Mitski如今已经是当中领头羊的存在 Mitski1990年9月27日出生，日裔美国创 作型歌手、音乐家。她出生在日本，并且 在成长过程中移居过很多个国家，最后她 在著名的纽约州立大学学习音乐。并在普赖斯学院音乐学院学习期间开启了她的音乐生涯。 她在此期间自己发行了自己的前两张专 辑：《Lusg》（2012）和《Retired from sad,New career in business》（2013） 并于2014年发行了广受好评的 第三张录音室专辑《Bury Me At Makeout Creek》。紧随其后的是《Puberty2》 （2016）和《Be The Cowboy》（2018）。后释出《Laurell Hell》和《The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We》 的长浦的音乐之旅就像她的经历一样是一 位漂流者。这位创作型歌手在日本出生后 跟随父亲，在13个不同的国家长大。如 今，她接受了一种永久性的搬迁来到美国 布鲁克林，在不巡演的时候住在东海岸的 各个转租公寓和airbnb而上，就像早年漂泊不定的人生。 在大学期间，Mitski通过音乐表达自己的青 春期而受到关注，你无法从她的作品中来 定位她的曲风，因为杂糅了梦幻流行、独 立、民谣、前卫摇滚等多种风味共冶一炉 虽然在美国乐坛有了一定名气，但由于她 的亚洲血统，mitski立即意识到：即使在如此开发包容的美国摇滚圈，她也是一个局外 人。 由于美国摇滚乐坛不断涌现出新的年轻艺 人，作为一个亚洲面孔，很少有人谈论 她。mitski在多次采访中表示，发行音乐不 是因为她是亚洲人，只要人们愿意，她就 会继续做一名独立摇滚音乐人。 跨文化的成长背景下她身份体现在了她音 乐风格的杂糅中：时而有较为打开的美式 摇滚处理方式，时而有幽婉不安的个人心 灵回归；纯正的英语演唱，却也在编曲中 透出日式的清冷、干净和整齐的躁动。这 些都构成她的特异和不可捉摸。(行舟乐评)