“Be Sweet” by Japanese Breakfast

"Be Sweet" arrived on March 2, 2021, as the first single from Jubilee, Japanese Breakfast's third album, and it sounded like Michelle Zauner throwing the windows open. After records that wrestled with grief, here was a bright, strutting pop song, all synth-pop sheen and new wave bounce, with a funky undertow and a haze of dream pop around the edges.

Zauner wrote it with Jack Tatum, the founder of Wild Nothing, who also plays the bass, guitar, E-bow and synths. Bandmate Craig Hendrix, who had pushed her to write the album's arrangements herself, is on drums, and the three of them produced it together. It was cut back in 2019, and critics fell hard for its giddy, glowing mood.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.