Watch Mitski's Colorfully Surreal 'Nobody'

In "Nobody," the deceptively up-tempo, new single from her upcoming album, Be The Cowboy, Mitski grapples with a lingering loneliness – an emptiness that even her own celebrity can't erase.

"I've been big and small," she sings. "But still nobody wants me." The retro, electronically driven single is slicker than her previous releases, but the chords in "Nobody," like her emotional dilemma, never quite seem to resolve.

The accompanying video for "Nobody," with cartoon-like expressiveness and primary-colored scenes, recalls the pop art of Roy Lichtenstein. Directed by Christopher Good, it opens with a warped imitation of a classic diner scene: two diametrical Mitskis stare blankly at each other in a leather booth, sipping sand from an hourglass. Thus begins an oddly nightmarish sequence of scratched up faces, gold magnifying glasses and absurdly proportioned diaries. The surrealism gradually unveils Mitski's deepening alienation. Arms dangle from canary-yellow walls like silk garments off of a rack; she grabs one of them and tenderly holds its hand. Her fame has subjected her to scrutiny and adoration, but she seems to say she's still a nobody, unknown and unloved.

Her new record, Be the Cowboy, comes out August 17 on Dead Oceans.

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.