Michelle Zauner sets out to create her own joy after trauma and grief in her most upbeat record to date

★★★★★

On the heels of releasing her heartfelt New York Times best-selling memoir Crying in H Mart earlier this year, Michelle Zauner — also known as Japanese Breakfast — has graced listeners with her third album Jubilee.

After four years since the release of her last album, Soft Sounds from Another Planet in 2017, Zauner is using her art as a form of healing from past grief following the loss of her mother to cancer. 

Taking inspiration from albums such as Bjork’s Homogenic, Zauner told i-D, “I feel like my narrative has very much become someone who writes about grief and trauma and suffering; so I wanted to sort of surprise people with an album about joy.” 

Every aspect of this album, down to the colour scheme and use of persimmons on the cover, was carefully crafted to convey a sense of warmth as well as her fight for happiness despite what feels like the world crumbling around her. In an interview, the Korean-born artist shared, “So it felt like this beautiful metaphor — this fruit that starts out very unripe and hard and unpalatable, but it sort of softens and lets its environment and time change it and mature into something that’s very sweet.”

The opening track Paprika, which was inspired by a Satoshi Kon anime film of the same name, sets the stage for the 10-track record. With a mixture of synths, horns and strings into what can only be described as a whimsical and triumphant march as Zauner repeats, “Oh, it’s a rush!”

The next song and lead single, Be Sweet, is a true dance jam with a nod to ‘80s pop. Zauner described this as one of the more vocally challenging songs but something she felt got her out of her comfort zone as a musician. A bit of a contrast to the surf-rock-infused, The Beach Boys-esque, Kokomo, IN. Claimed to be Zauner’s favourite song on the album; telling a heartfelt story of a young boy from a small town saying goodbye to his love for the last time. 

When discussing Be Sweet, she said, “One of the lines I really love on that song is ‘show off to the world the parts I fell so hard for’. Wouldn’t it be so nice when you were a teenager if someone said that to you?”

Slide Tackle, commonly used as a football term, masquerades as Zauner’s way of forcing her brain to keep her inner demons at bay and enjoy life. The lyrics in the chorus convey her plea: “Slide tackling my mind / This weight feels like / I’m wrestling in my head / Obsessing in the dark.” 

A purposefully misleading title, the record’s midway point is Posing For Bondage. The second single off the album evokes feelings of longing for the comfort and closeness or ‘bondage’ that comes with a relationship. The lyrics “When the world divides into two people / Those who have felt pain / And those who have yet to,” are indicative of regardless of how much attention you beg for, you might not be the one to receive it.

Sit, Savage Good Boy, In Hell, are the most punchy and guitar-filled additions to the record as Zauner explores the desire for love, complicated relationship dynamics, capitalists and grief after her dog passed away.

The final two tracks, Tactics and Posing For Cars, finish off the album to perfection. Tactics exudes melancholy and sorrow, predominantly due to the use of strings intermixed with sombre piano. The final six-and-a-half-minute Posing For Cars closes this chapter with Zauner equating the lyric, “Just a single desire fermenting,” to grief and memory before executing a guitar solo just shy of four minutes to end the song.

Japanese Breakfast’s album couldn’t have come at a better time. When you really listen to the lyrics, you’ll soon realise this isn’t a ‘happy’ album but more about the very human search for the little joys of life. With the world still shrouded in the unknown, Jubilee offers a helping hand, lighting the path out of the darkness.