Jubilees

ISSUE #156

Joy can render us ageless. It is one of the few forces that can subdue time—like love, it transgresses mortal bounds, sewing shut our wounds and freeing us from pain. Joy demands words like "burst" and "swell," as if the soul itself were trying to taste the air. The best drugs on earth do little more than hijack sensation—sleep, hunger, color, time—of which joy is perhaps the most powerful, the chemical fire that forges memories.

Today is the release of my most anticipated album of the year, Japanese Breakfast’s Jubilee. After two grief-stricken masterpieces—her mother died in 2014 of pancreatic cancer, which she processed through her first two albums and this year’s memoir Crying in H Mart—Michelle Zauner is ready to change course and embrace euphoria, donning the yellow dress of joy. That it took seven years for the sun to rise is proof of just how long grief takes. It never truly ends, but it could never vanquish joy, our most timely companion, always ready to assume the form of a friend, a laugh, a melody, a mountain dog.

Jubilee is an ecstatic first listen, full of horns and strings and rich walls of sound. This is Zauner sculpting sonic statues, casting feelings into monuments, and galvanizing her artistic singularity in the process. To honor it, I compiled my own Jubilees: my songs of purest joy, immaculate hallelujahs. These songs measure the depths of our brightest emotions and prove that even the longest night is forgotten in the presence of the sun.