Joy and Grief in Tandem: A Review of Michelle Zauner’s Jubilee and Crying In H Mart

Michelle Zauner, who is more widely known as the musician Japanese Breakfast, has devoted years and albums to her mother’s passing. Her 2016 release, Psychopomp, recorded just months after her mother’s death from cancer, features a picture of her mom reaching for the camera, never quite touching it. The album centers bright and soaring instrumentals that belie a deep and complex pain. This light and the dark coexisting in a fraught space is a staple of Zauner’s work, and the same duality characterizes Zauner’s recent back-to-back projects, the memoir Crying in H Mart and the album Jubilee. Through both media, Zauner has reimagined what it means to be an artist, to grieve publicly, and to find solace in the everyday things.

Zauner, who studied creative writing at Bryn Mawr, has spent most of her creative career making music; however, when The New Yorker published her memoir’s titular essay in 2018, she became an overnight literary sensation. The essay went viral, and anticipation for a complete memoir became part of literary news. Even before its official publication date in late April 2021, it became clear that Crying in H Mart would be a breakout success. Shortly after the memoir’s release, in June 2021, Zauner dropped her third studio album, Jubilee.

I experienced Jubilee first, in my bedroom late one night, hiding under the covers with the lights off. There was a ghostly quietness, the perfect time to sink your teeth into a new record. The album opens with the electric “Paprika,” and I was struck on first listen by the strength of Zauner’s voice. In interviews, Zauner has described Jubilee as a departure from her earlier works, an opportunity to write about joy and celebration after tackling grief and loss for so long. And it’s the fire in Zauner’s voice, more so than the drums or the guitar or the bass, that conveys this sense of newness, of changing directions.

Japanese Breakfast has been called a lot of things: dream pop, indie rock, lo-fi. Yet on Jubilee, she refuses to be boxed in, to hue to one set of rules. “Be Sweet,” the second song on Jubilee, is all 80s nostalgia, drums and heavy guitar. While opener “Paprika” leans into the indie aesthetic that she is so well known for, “Be Sweet” is a throwback, a call to a bygone era, cheery and danceable with a singing style reminiscent of Cyndi Lauper at the height of her powers.

“Kokomo, IN,” is the closest to a “sad song” on Jubilee. It begins with the lines, “If I could throw my arms around you / For just another day / Maybe it’d feel like the first time.” Whether the song’s object is a lover is only partially clear. Lines like “Watching you show off to the world / The parts I fell so hard for” point to a romantic relationship. Yet the lyrics are ambiguous enough that anyone who has done a deep dive into Zauner’s body of work might be forgiven for thinking that this too is exploring the aftermath of deep grief.

If “Kokomo, IN” is the saddest song on Jubilee, then “Slide Tackle” is the darkest. “I want to be good,” Zauner sings in her trademark falsetto. “I want to navigate this hate in my heart.” The two extremes placed side by side, one tender, one forceful, more forceful than anything we have seen from Zauner so far, highlight the type of range that is so central to Zauner’s work, her ability to showcase a kaleidoscope of emotions and still have a streamlined and cohesive album.

The star of Jubilee, however, is “Posing in Bondage,” which comes almost in the middle of the album. Here, the object is unambiguous, and the song is both dark and sensual. “Can you tell I’ve been posing / This way alone for hours?” Zauner sings. “Waiting for your affection / Waiting...