FACING THE ABYSS

Michelle Zauner's new album with Japanese Breakfast explores the many ways in which sadness pervades modern womanhood

- BY RACHEL SONIS

MICHELLE ZAUNER WANTS TO SET THE REcord straight: She is not trying to reclaim the label "sad girl music." Since announcing the title of her highly anticipated fourth studio album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), the author, director, and front woman of indie-pop band Japanese Breakfast has been surprised to see how divisive the title has become, and the assumptions it's given way to. Some thought she was writing a collection of sad breakup songs, others that she was taking ownership of a label that has previously been wielded with the intent to belittle or insult.

"I think [the album title] was a little bit tongue-incheek," Zauner says with a chuckle over Zoom in early February. "And it was maybe taken very literally." "Sad girl music" is a fraught subject, and Zauner chooses her words carefully. "I don't want to get into trouble," she says, explaining that a lot of brilliant women songwriters get unfairly punted into that category. And it's true: the music industry and the internet have made a nasty habit of reducing songwriting by women that deals with complex emotions in this way-Phoebe Bridgers, Mitski, and Lana Del Rey have had to fend off these degrading designations for years.