WACK.
MUSIC COMMENTARY
LUSH
the beginning of an era
Alandrea Griffith
Mitsuki Laycock’s debut studio album, Lush, is breathtakingly overlooked and underrated. This nine track compilation was created during her junior year in college as a cumulative project in 2012. It’s safe to say she understood the assignment. This half hour has concepts of patriarchy, objectification, and self image all wrapped in a large bow of flawless lyrics and vocals.
Mitsuki opens this album with Liquid Smooth, a song that most can agree is one of her strongest. She begins to illustrate society’s idea of women’s beauty only being found in youth. In this track it's clear she is longing for someone to see her as she is in her best moments before her youth runs out.
And feel my skin is plump and full of life
I’m in my prime
I’m at my highest peak, I’m ripe
About to fall, catch me
She exhibits several breathtaking notes truly portraying the potential her voice holds making the listener want nothing more than to hear more after the first track. When arranging this album she wanted to impress her listeners from start to finish, so much so she arranged it twice.
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23:18
8TRACKS
26:01
9TRACKS
Laycock leads into Wife speaking of the “son” she cannot bear. The “son” she speaks of holds a larger representation of all she fears she can not give her lover. She’s continuing to destroy herself for being insufficient and incapable of being loved. She expresses that she would be nothing without this lover. When listening to the album in the originally arranged order, you can conclude that she placed Wife after Liquid Smooth to emphasize her anxiety of never being cherished. However in the released album arrangement we see her place Eric after Liquid Smooth. Eric is a gut-churning track voicing how one’s lover only wants them for their body and the giving up of themselves for the desperate need of love and validation. Every second the production and intensity of the song grows stronger and you can feel yourself being engulfed into this vivid situation. This placement works to better support her idea of wanting a lover more than to simply be loved.
We start to see Mitsuki experiment more and get further away from her piano backbone as we continue into Brand New City. The idea of girls in society being forced to be obsessed with their self image is obviously conveyed in this track as well as Real Men. The fourth track focuses on how men used to want genuine love at a younger age and not lust. She expresses her unfortunate need for men’s validation now that society has grown them into emotinonally incompetent people.
Abbey explores her message to young girls that they are worth more than male validation and their need to feel beautiful. Transitioning into her first ever written song, Bag of Bones is a beguilingly composed piece of work communicating her exhaustion after waiting for love endlessly.
I’m all used up, pretty boy, over and over again
My nail colors are wearing off
See my hands, pretty boy, what do they tell you?
‘Cause I’ve looked down at them not knowing why
One track before the closing she speaks of a Door leading towards her unachievable dream of everlasting beauty and adoration. With a seamless transition into her closing track Pearl Diver, we hear her encourage herself to want more for herself than beauty. Considering this was her first album, one could assume this is Laycock wanting to fully dedicate herself to her music career, though the “struggle will be daily.”
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Written by Alandrea Griffith. October 2021.