Every Mitski album ranked worst to best
Mitski is a truly singular artist. In sound, style and lyricism, she feels incomparable to anyone else. She’s peerless in the way that she takes bits and pieces of different genres and references and then distils them through her own unique mind. Across seven records, that mind has hooked a growing cult of fans, but which comes out on top?
In many ways, it’s impossible to even compare Mitski’s own records to each other. Each album offers something different, made at a distinct moment in time or during her training and development as an artist. Ideas get picked up and put down, from moments of all out grunge rock to a brief fling with 1980s pop.
But throughout it all, the thing that has remained is her lyrical sharpness. Whether delivering complete and utter emotional devastation on her most gutwrenching tracks or delving into topics like love, work, family and purpose, each song is free from cliche and rich in intrigue. Someone could sit and annotate each line as they untangled the layers of meaning and metaphor involved. Yet still, the songs remain catchy even when heavy.
From being a student in college to being a global star, Mitski’s discography tracks her growth. No longer an underground name or a niche act trying to find her positioning, she’s blown up into the big time but done it without ever compromising. While each album is a vital step towards that, not all seven are made equal.
Ranking Mitski’s albums in order of greatness:
7. Lush (2012)
As her debut album, Lush is packed with promise. Within one track, Mitski announced her arrival as a serious contender in the music world with ‘Liquid Smooth’. Combining her more classical and technically minded brain, which was currently being exercised as she studied at SUNY Purchase’s Conservatory of Music, with a more avant-garde edge, this opening track is the best of both and a meld of two different schools with the ease and intrigue that only she could do.
Made for and handed in as her final project for her Junior year, it feels like Mitski just before she became Mitski. Crafted by a student still finding her feet, there are telltale signs of what was to come. ‘Real Men’ feels reminiscent of the neater, more pop-driven tracks she’d release later, while ‘Pearl Diver’ is dark, gothic, and abstract. It’s all there, but it’s not quite ready yet.
6. Retired From Sad, New Career In Business (2013)
It’s a similar story for her second album. Once again, this album was a school project, handed in at the end of her Senior year and swapped out for a diploma. It’s a perfect representation of not just a student levelling up in terms of skill, as these songs feel better built and better produced. But it’s also representative of an artist just on the cusp of graduating from her training wheels.
Once again, there are songs here that speak to the artistic might that will be unveiled clearer and clearer across her other projects. ‘Goodbye, My Danish Sweetheart’ feels like the precursor to something like ‘First Love / Late Spring’ or ‘Francis Forever’. The gutwrenching ‘I Want You’ is the first clue towards the emotional devastation she’d master later on ‘I Bet On Losing Dogs’. While better than the album that came before with far more markings of her unique artistic brand, Retired From Sad, New Career In Business is still an artist blooming, but it’s easier to see that the flower was going to be seriously special.
5. The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We (2023)
Her most recent release, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, could arguably be described as Mitski’s most undiluted. By that, I mean that this isn’t an easy album. It’s thick and wordy. It requires more patience to untangle the metaphors at hand in songs like ‘The Deal’ or ‘The Frost’. In places, though, the payoff for that extra attention is magnificent. ‘I’m Your Man’ is an empirical lyrical creation as she picked through the nuance of being put on a pedestal by a lover and then demonised for falling off it.
However, while housing her biggest hit to date in the form of ‘My Love Mine All Mine’, the album lacks a certain bite. It’s slower, less hooky and even though instant catchiness isn’t a marker of greatness, there’s a level to which a certain spark is missing as Mitski shook off the more pop-leaning elements and for some, they were missed.
4. Puberty 2 (2016)
Puberty 2 is one of those albums that houses incredible tracks yet lacks a certain polish. But those tracks are so good that any of its faults can be forgiven. ‘Your Best American Girl’ is the best of them. It begins as a gentle rumble about feeling alien in a relationship with someone, touching on issues of identity and race within the mix before breaking into one of the most instrumentally and lyrically powerful choruses she’s ever penned.
‘I Bet On Losing Dogs’ is another, sitting as one of the artist’s most defining and beloved tracks. ‘Once More to See You’ is one that deserves more attention too as a lush and marching track. But in amongst these looming moments of pure excellents, the rest is good but lacks the finishing sheen that her coming albums captured.
3. Bury Me at Makeout Creek (2014)
In 2014, fresh out of college, Mitski presented her first album since graduating and, in turn, presented herself as a very different artist. No longer tethered to the piano, Bury Me at Makeout Creek was a huge change of pace, sound and energy for her. Suddenly, she shifted gears to being an indie-rock act, bringing some of the avant-garde energy with her but fueling it with more punch.
Every corner is covered. ‘Last Words of a Shooting Star’ is a suicidal ode that taps into Mitski’s devastating side, while ‘Carry Me Out’ and ‘Townie’ are rousing rock tracks that deliver a spark and energy she hadn’t offered up before. But it’s ‘First Love / Late Spring’ and ‘Francis Forever’ that make this album two tracks standing as perfect examples of Mitski’s ability to merge poetry and unique musicality to a singularly expert effect.
2. Laurel Hell (2022)
When Mitski reemerged in 2021 with single ‘Working For The Knife’, she once again emerged as a new artist. That one song alone makes this one of her best eras, existing as a razor-sharp consideration of labour, creativity, and the demands of being an artist versus the ongoing artist mentality of feeling like you’re not doing enough. Followed up by ‘Love Me More’ as her most outright pop track to date, she launched into a chapter laced with more accessible musical energy but lyricism that remained as masterful as ever.
Laurel Hell is an example of a record that is perfect from start to finish. It captures so many different states and feelings, offering something for fans who like her grungier side, sad edge, punchier moments, or avant-garde stuff. Every aspect of her musical mind is on display in its most vibrant and hooky form as if, for one album, she leaned into making music for the masses but making it her way.
1. Be the Cowboy (2018)
But nothing can beat Be The Cowboy. After working away as a darling of the underground, previously being an if you know you know type of name, Be The Cowboy was a breakthrough moment as this album, with it’s striking artwork and striking around, cut through.
It begins with ‘Geyser’, a song that behaves just like the phenomenon that gives it its name; bubbling and then bursting. Later, ‘A Pearl’ is one of her punchiest songs ever penned as it only seems to build and build with these biting yet devastating lyrics that are somehow both abstract and gutwrenching. ‘Me and my Husband’ is the same sort of story as it’s fueled by feeling without ever making itself obvious or laying itself out.
Mitski proves here that she doesn’t need to, that she can make strong songs that will resonate and capture people’s attention without the need for cliches or quick grabs. It’s the album that feels like the ultimate product of everything that came before and the example set for everything that came after as the moment that Mitski, as she is known, loved, respected and revered, truly established herself.
