Japanese Breakfast (2025)

One Liner: Great melodic indie rock to go with thoughts of sushi pancakes

Wikipedia Genre: Indie rock, indie pop, alternative pop, dream pop

Home:  Philadelphia (although Wikipedia lists Eugene, Oregon)

Poster Position: Top Quarter - Line 5
Day: Saturday
Both Weekends.

Beatbox Stage at 7:30.

Thoughts:  She was last here in 2022, and I didn't see her, but I really wish I had.  Pretty sure we were squeezing up in the crowd to see Paramore instead.  But, I really enjoy some of her tunes.

Back in 2018 when she first came to ACL, her top song was called "Road Head" and I'm all about it.  Although, I have to say, getting up to shenanigans like that while on the turnpike exit seems like a terrible idea.  If you are needing to maneuver in any way other than driving straight ahead at the same speed, then it is honestly a better time to just take a chill pill and hold on for a few minutes.  Oh God, I'm old.  If you've thought fully through something like this, then you are officially too big of a dork and stick in the mud for anyone to even want to tear the cover off the gear shift anyway.  Anyway, that is still her second-most streamed track, at 42.8 million streams.

Huh.  I guess if death is the one giving you road head, then no one in your car really cares if you are being unsafe in the throes of your O face.  Have at it then!  Also, ramen and cigarettes?  I can't even consider this as an option.  I'd literally rather die.  That video is disturbing on multiple levels.

"Boyish" is a cool, noirish, surfish love tune.  36.9 million streams.  Peep it, the first song in this Tiny Desk concert:

Lovely.  I need an invite to all Tiny Desk concerts for all time.  I wish she would have talked more about stuff, but very nice tunes.  Different from the recordings, which are much more electronically inclined instead of acoustic.

Overall, I really like this lady.  Her real name is Michelle Zauner.  She said that the band name comes from a "juxtaposition of Asian exoticism and American culture."  Which is, uh, OK.  She apparently isn't Japanese either.  But she said she "chose the name because she "grew up relating to Japanese culture quite a bit because it felt like the closest thing [she] had" to Korean popular culture in America."  OK, that is kind of cool, then.

They also do a good cover of "Dreams," the Cranberries tune.  But I think she missteps on the auto-tune fest "Machinist."  That is about the only tune on her early albums that I outright dislike.  She also has a fun cover of "Say It Ain't So," complete with a string section, that is fun.

I'll give you one of her older tracks too.  Her early two albums, 2017's Soft Sounds from Another Planet (which includes both "Road Head" and "Boyish") and 2016's Psychopomp, are both great.  That debut album includes "Everybody Wants to Love You," her fourth most listened to track at 30.3 million streams.

Like a yelping Bjork at times, and the song is much more upbeat than the newer album.  Yeah, I'm down for this stuff.  

Next was the very good Jubilee in 2021.  This one has a little disco sparkle on top of an otherwise great indie rock sound.  "Be Sweet" is a sunshiny pop nugget of an aspirational love song.  The top track for sure, and her biggest overall streamer, with 80.7 million streams.

Kicks off kinda funky, and then the guitar and drums start to edge closer to disco, before the chorus kicks in and you are required to groove to the track and decide to honor synth-pop as cool.  It just bangs with bouncy happiness.  Jenky ass video too.  "Slide Tackle" also has that disco pop feeling.  Other tunes on here are less poppy and more indie, like the nice one that follows "Be Sweet," called "Kokomo, IN," which sounds like something you'd find on some indie budget movie's soundtrack.  "Savage Good Boy" is another standout track that makes me think of Neko Case.  This is good music.  You usually find me on this blog whining about how overly long albums are, but in this case I wish it was even longer!

Strangely, the next release is a 32 song long "video game soundtrack" for something called Sable.  Which is totally weird to have that included on Spotify.  But it is just normal, pretty music (not the beeps and boops that one might expect from a normal video game soundtrack).

Finally, you get 2025's For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women).  As per the usual, this is really pretty.  Not quite as upbeat as the prior albums (which, duh, with that title) but nonetheless I find it warmly dark.  And its not all dark!  "Mega Circuit" has a whimsical Fiona Apple-esque lilt to it that is catchy for sure.  The weirdest thing to happen in all of music this year, for my money, is the warbling addition of Jeff Bridges to "Men in Bars" for, uh, reasons.  At first, I thought maybe Elvis Costello had gone through a stroke and agreed to come back with this song, but then I saw who it was, and I guess that makes sense.  His marblemouthed delivery of lines in The Old Man definitely checks out here.  At 10 songs and 32 minutes, this disc definitely breezes by quickly.  "Orlando in Love" make me think of a Lord Huron song from a few years ago.  That's the top streamer with 5.1 million.

I don't know why but I was really hoping Orlando Bloom was going to wander out in his elf costume.  These are good songs, this is a good little set.

I'd absolutely go give her a shot in the fall.  Might be a little too detailed and pretty for a Fest show, but I want to keep hearing these tunes.