''Retired from Sad, New Career in Business'' is the second studio album by Japanese-American musician

Mitski Mitski Miyawaki (born Mitsuki Laycock; September 27, 1990), known professionally by the mononym Mitski, is a Japanese-born American singer-songwriter. Mitski self-released her first two albums, '' Lush'' (2012) and '' Retired from Sad, New Caree ...

. Mitski self-released the project on August 1, 2013 while still a student at

SUNY Purchase The State University of New York at Purchase (commonly Purchase College or SUNY Purchase) is a Public college, public Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Purchase, New York. It is one of 13 comprehensive colleges ...

. The album was her senior project and featured a 60-piece student orchestra. Every song on the album, excluding Square, was accompanied by a music video, with each video playing a part in an ongoing story. In the summer of 2020, album track "Strawberry Blond" gained a resurgence in popularity on the social media app

TikTok TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version ...

, specifically in the

cottagecore Cottagecore is an internet aesthetic popularised by teenagers and young adults celebrating an idealized rural life. Traditionally based on a rural English and European life, it was developed throughout the 2010s and was first named ''cottagecore' ...

community.

Critical reception

''Retired from Sad, New Career in Business'' received praise for its blend of "out-of-the-norm orchestral sounds with electronics and 'found' sounds". In a career retrospective following her 2018 studio album ''

Be the Cowboy ''Be the Cowboy'' is the fifth studio album by Japanese-American indie rock musician Mitski, released on August 17, 2018, through Dead Oceans. Produced by longtime collaborator Patrick Hyland, the album widens Mitski's palette with a return to the ...

'', Jesse Herb of

Atwood Magazine Atwood Magazine is a digital music magazine that focuses on emerging and established artists from around the world. The magazine was founded in 2012 and is currently run by editor-in-chief Mitch Mosk. History Atwood Magazine was founded in 20 ...

said that the album "completely highlights Mitski’s writing growth in just one year, and also her impeccable composition" and that the album "could be in an

off-broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

musical." Herb singled out "Shame", "Circle", and "Strawberry Blond" in particular, saying that the latter "feels like a lost

Dar Williams Dorothy Snowden "Dar" Williams (born April 19, 1967) is an American pop folk singer-songwriter from Mount Kisco, New York. Hendrik Hertzberg of ''The New Yorker'' has described Williams as "one of America's very best singer-songwriters." She i ...

record".

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from

Bandcamp Bandcamp is an American online audio distribution platform founded in 2007 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with headquarters in Oakland, California, US. On March 2, 2022, Bandcamp ...

. * Mitski – songwriting, vocals, drums * Trevor Fedele – recording engineer * Patrick Hyland – recording engineer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer * Will Prinzi – acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass * Mike Rasimas – drums * Scott Interrante – orchestrations * Sean Mcverry – gang vocals * Eli Wolf-Christensen – gang vocals, mandolin * Kenneth "Kenny" Trotter – violin * Sarah Wolffe – violin * Michael Mandrin – violin * Sophie Dolamore – viola * Naseer François Ashraf – viola * Elise Linder – cello * Pete Olynciw – upright bass * Kevin Schmid – upright bass * Julie Yeaeun Lee – flute * Andrew Cowie – clarinet, bass clarinet * John Cummings – trumpet * Jerome Burns – trumpet, cornet * Rich Liverano – trombone * Cristian Uraga – french horn * Pixel (as Trixie Doll) – cover model

Notes

References

External links

* {{Authority control 2013 albums Mitski albums Self-released albums Orchestral pop albums Freak folk albums