| "Geyser" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by Mitski | ||||
| from the album Be the Cowboy | ||||
| Released | May 14, 2018 | |||
| Genre | Art pop | |||
| Length | 2:23 | |||
| Label | Dead Oceans | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Mitski | |||
| Producer(s) | Patrick Hyland | |||
| Mitski singles chronology | ||||
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| Music video | ||||
| "Geyser" on YouTube | ||||
"Geyser" is a song by American singer Mitski, released on May 14, 2018, as the lead single from her fifth studio album, Be the Cowboy . She performed the song on The Daily Show in September 2018. [1]
About the song, Mitski said "I think this is one of my vaguest songs. Usually my songs have a narrative of some sort. But this song is all feeling." [2]
It was the first song to be written for Be the Cowboy. Mitski said:
I started to write it in college; it's the song I've taken the longest to write. It had become my White Whale - Moby Dick reference - where I couldn't get it right. Every time I thought I'd finished it it just didn't feel right, so I kept changing it. It's gone through many iterations; probably people who went to school with me, who've been in seminars with me, are like "wait, I heard that somewhere..." And then I finally got to a point where I was like "you know what, I need to end this, I'm never gonna be happy with it so let me finish it." So I did. [3]
Pitchfork writer Olivia Horn in her track review of "Geyser" said, "The structure of the song defies logic, just as its subject does: [Mitski] Miyawaki has scrapped the verse-chorus-verse-bridge structure, instead building out three separate hooks and pasting them together, one after the other. Midway through the song, everything erupts like—not to be too obvious—a geyser, guitars and violins crescendoing as Miyawaki professes her devotion." [4]
Vice wrote that the song features "ominous organ sounds and Mitski's trademark sonic swell. When the percussion comes in the whole thing comes alive, and there are some added synth lines that make it particularly huge and dramatic. Mitski's lyrics – always gut-wrenching – echo the song's build, as she sings on the chorus 'Though I'm a geyser / Feel it bubbling from below'". [5]
A music video for "Geyser", directed by Zia Anger, [6] was released on the same day as the single. [7] [8] The Fader wrote that the video takes place on "a gloomy and funereal beachside while Mitski strikes desperate movements that hit at the longing at the heart of the song." [9]
The Fader ranked "Geyser" as the 12th best song of 2018, writing that the song is "reminiscent of a worship song in the ways she pledges wholehearted devotion to an entity that routinely causes suffering. In Mitski's case that entity is music, but the personal is universal, and it's easy to listen to 'Geyser' and think of your own relationships to your own things." [10]
In June 2018, The Ringer included the song on their list of "The Best Songs of 2018—So Far". [11]
MacBriare Samuel Lanyon DeMarco is a Canadian singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer. He has released six full-length studio albums, his debut, 2 (2012), Salad Days (2014), This Old Dog (2017), Here Comes the Cowboy (2019), Five Easy Hot Dogs (2023), and One Wayne G (2023). He additionally released the mini-albums Rock and Roll Night Club in 2012 and Another One in 2015. His style of music has been described as "blue wave" and "slacker rock", or, by DeMarco himself, "jizz jazz".
Ryan Hemsworth is a Canadian record producer and DJ. He specialises in electronic music and sampling. He has produced tracks for Tinashe, Tory Lanez, Mitski, and E-40.
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Mitsuki Miyawaki, known professionally as Mitski, is an American singer and songwriter. She self-released her first two albums, Lush (2012), and Retired from Sad, New Career in Business (2013), while studying studio composition at Purchase College's Conservatory of Music. The albums were originally made as her senior project. Her third studio album, Bury Me at Makeout Creek, was released in 2014 on the label Double Double Whammy.
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"Your Best American Girl" is a song by American singer Mitski, from her fourth studio album, Puberty 2 (2016). The song was released on March 1, 2016, as the lead single from the album. It was written by Mitski and produced by Patrick Hyland.
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Be the Cowboy is the fifth studio album by 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 piano featured on her first two records alongside synthesizers, horns and the guitar that became her signature instrument. Upon its release, Be the Cowboy received widespread acclaim from music critics, who later ranked it among the best albums of 2018. It was preceded by the singles "Geyser", "Nobody", and "Two Slow Dancers". Be the Cowboy was Mitski's first album to chart on the Billboard 200, and also entered the charts in Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.
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"The Only Heartbreaker" is a song by American singer Mitski, released on November 9, 2021 as the second single from her sixth studio album, Laurel Hell. The song was written by Mitski and Dan Wilson. The single became Mitski's first to reach number 1 on the charts, reaching that spot on the US AAA chart.
Be the Cowboy Tour was a concert tour by Japanese-American singer-songwriter Mitski, in support of her fifth studio album Be the Cowboy (2018). The tour began on August 12, 2018, in Providence, Rhode Island, United States and concluded on September 8, 2019, in New York City, United States.
The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Mitski, released on September 15, 2023, through Dead Oceans. Produced by Patrick Hyland, it was recorded at the Bomb Shelter studio in Nashville and Sunset Sound in Los Angeles. The album was promoted by the release of the singles "Bug Like an Angel", "Star" / "Heaven" and "My Love Mine All Mine" through July to October 2023, the latter being one of Mitski's most successful songs to date. The Land Is Inhospitable was received with unanimous praise by critics, who appreciated the emotional rawness of Mitski's lyrics as well as the stripped-down nature of the music.
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