Puberty 2 (10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)

Puberty 2 (10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)

Need to know: With its raw, immediate energy and dead-serious delivery, Mitski’s fourth album Puberty 2 confirmed the singer-songwriter as a generational indie talent—and provided her breakout moment. Go deeper: Puberty is a game of emotional pinball: hormones that surge, feelings that ricochet between exhilarating highs and gut-churning lows. That’s the dizzying, intoxicating experience Mitski evokes on her aptly titled fourth record, a rush of rebel music that touches on riot grrrl, skeletal indie rock, dreamy pop, and buoyant punk. Unexpected hooks pierce through the singer-songwriter’s razor-edged narratives—a lilting chorus elevates the slinky, druggy “Crack Baby,” while her sweet singsong melodies wrestle with hollow guitar to amplify the tension on “Your Best American Girl.” Then there’s “I Bet on Losing Dogs,” a sigh of a song on which Mitski laments self-sabotage in dead-end relationships (“I always want you when I’m finally fine”) in one of her most enduring, career-best moments. This deluxe edition finds an indie superstar returning to her scrappy breakout moment 10 years later, and adding on two previously unreleased covers which feel right at home here. There’s her take on One Direction’s “Fireproof”—which sounds very Mitski with its driving, distorted guitars and yearning vocal delivery—alongside Frank Sinatra’s “I’m a Fool to Want You,” which is given a haunting, hazy update.

Other Versions