Mitski Business

Mitski, the Academy Award–nominated rainstorm, has officially launched her takeover tour for last year’s brilliant album, The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We. She has become one of America’s premier musicians, and this tour is where she proves it. Last weekend, she packed the 20,000–seat Merriweather Post Pavilion in Maryland for three shows over Labor Day weekend—a bigger crowd than even Lorde was drawing when Mitski was her opener in 2018.

For years now, Mitski has performed stark, esoteric choreography with her shows, more performance art than dance. It may surprise people at first that an artist so nakedly introverted would tour with what looks like a Lynchian vaudeville routine, but she came to this as a practical solution for herself and her audience—a crowd of loners who tend not to jump around so much as bow their heads. She holds a strange, parasocial spell over the young; her spectral dirges speak directly to the hormonal death wish that is adolescence. She sings sometimes like a cursed lounge singer—dispassionate, cornered, wafting through old smoke—before erupting in an implacable hailstorm. Her songs are subtle, sticky listens, slim at first but limitless with time.

Her writing recalls the appeal of MJ Lenderman—here lie those who strove not for innovation but have proven genius with some simple grace. The opener to her latest album, “Bug Like an Angel,” starts as many songs do: with a single strum of an acoustic guitar. It’s not long before her voice becomes a choir, and the effect is that of intoxication, a blossom in the bloodstream, sinking at first and floating toward the end. Iggy Pop has described her as “probably the most advanced American songwriter that I know.”

While this talent may make fame seem inevitable, it’s been far from guaranteed over the years. She prohibits pictures at her shows and rarely courts the press. She doesn’t play the game—not out of scorn, but because it drains some souls to demise. Her fans don’t mind at all; today, she has over one billion streams on “My Love Mine All Mine,” a song that came out only a year ago. Marceline the Vampie Queen plays her song on Adventure Time. She soundtracks any TikTok with an ounce of malaise. She’s carved out her place in the annals of music history.

This weekend will be another packed three-day stint, this time at Atlanta’s beautiful Fox Theatre. I have a ticket, and I am excited. I plan to give her the introvert’s salute—elbow in the one hand, other hand on the cheek, eyes keep darting from ceiling to stage.

---