One of my favorite bands is Japanese Breakfast, a pop band headed by Korean-American musician and author Michelle Zauner. The group has been active since 2013 and has released three albums: Psychopomp, Soft Sounds from Another Planet, and Jubilee. Jubilee is their most recent release, and as the title suggests, it is an album about pure joy—a concept that is ironic given its publication during the pandemic.
Jubilee was crafted primarily by Zauner and her band member Craig Hendrix. The two described their collaborative process in the album as working as one, in an "insular experience" of playing all of the instruments together while working together in Craig's studio for a month. This beautiful, and ever important, aspect of collaboration is precisely how Japanese Breakfast was able to produce the variety of music on Jubilee and demonstrates the trust that the two musicians reportedly built up with one another over years of working together. Hendrix describes how, "the one thing Michelle and I have in common is that we look at the song first, as an individual piece of art." This like minded approach to the creative endeavor of music making allowed the two to create a variety of "sonically" similar music without being bound to the structure of a thematic album. Personally, my favorite song on the album has consistently been "Be Sweet", which I highly recommend.
Although Zauner is well known for her music, she also an author. On April 20, 2021, her memoir called Crying in H Mart was published, discussing her upbringing as a Korean-American woman and is dedicated to her mother who passed away from cancer; the title is a reference to the Asian supermarket, H Mart. The reception of her memoir has been quite successful, and Zauner has received great feedback on her first publication and has even landed her on the New York Times nonfiction best seller list. In contrast to the collaborative process of her music, she describes how writing this memoir required less collaboration. That being said, figures such as her husband, her editor, aided her albeit insular creative endeavor of this memoir. Writing this memoir during the thick of the pandemic, Zauner describes how the isolation of the lockdown granted her the time to completely devote herself to her writing.
Your post was the first one on the feed when I logged on and I knew it was Japanese Breakfast before I even started reading from the cover photo! I also love the song "Be Sweet," but my favorite it is "Posing for Cars." I also had no idea she wrote, but now I'm curious. I love how you discussed collaboration - I feel like that's such an important part of creativity and greatly effects the end product.
ReplyDeleteIt's so interesting how Zauner has very different processes for her two creative endeavors. It makes sense that a memoir would be a solo work, especially because it seems like a lot of the book detailed Zauner's personal relationship with her mother and her childhood, which would be difficult for anyone but her to understand. I am also intrigued by Zauner's ability to produce multiple complicated creative works during the pandemic; it is interesting to consider the different impacts that isolation had on how creatives make art.
ReplyDeleteI've heard of Japanese Breakfast before but haven't given their music a listen before now. Diving into a musician's creative process, especially a band's collaboration techniques, is so interesting and I think it really helps us appreciate the music that much more. I will be sure to check out Jubilee and consider the artistic qualities in each song as well as the ways in which the album is not constrained by thematic structure as I listen.
ReplyDeleteI love Japanese Breakfast, and it was very interesting to read about the collaboration process between Zauner and Hendrix and how their similar approach to music helped them collaborate more efficiently. I had heard of the book Crying in H Mart before, but I had no clue that it was written by the person behind Japanese Breakfast's music. Being able to create music and write a book about her experiences as a Korean American, Michelle Zauner is definitely a versatile artist. Great post!
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