''Retired from Sad, New Career in Business'' is the second studio album by American musician
Mitski
Mitsuki Laycock (born September 27, 1990), also known as Mitski Miyawaki, and known professionally as Mitski, is an American singer-songwriter. She Self-publishing, self-released her first two albums, ''Lush (Mitski album), Lush'' (2012), and '' ...
. Mitski recorded the project in 2013 while studying music at
State University of New York at Purchase
The State University of New York at Purchase, commonly referred to as Purchase College or SUNY Purchase, is a public liberal arts college in Purchase, New York. Established in 1967 by Governor Nelson Rockefeller, SUNY Purchase is one of 13 compr ...
. The album was her senior project and featured a 60-piece student orchestra. Every song on the album was accompanied by a music video, each video playing a part in an ongoing story,
making it a
visual album. In summer 2020, the track "Strawberry Blond" gained popularity on the social media app
TikTok
TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...
, specifically in the
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 Mitski's 2018 studio album ''
Be the Cowboy'', Jesse Herb of ''Atwood Magazine'' 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 ...
record".
Track listing
Personnel
Credits adapted from
Bandcamp
Bandcamp is an American online music distribution platform founded in 2008 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with an office and record store in Oakland, California. Acquired by Epic ...
.
* Mitski – songwriting, vocals, piano, 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 Pixie Doll) – cover model
Notes
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
2013 albums
Mitski albums
Self-released albums
Orchestral pop albums