The singer-songwriter’s 8th studio album employs memorable literary references to construct a resonant musical world
By NATALIE SALTER — arts@theaggie.org
In 2023, Mitski made her first entry onto the Billboard Hot 100 with “My Love Mine All Mine,” a love song defined by its tender lyricism and warm, gentle melody. But for all of its sweetness, it carries a quiet melancholia too; the entire song is founded upon her certainty that she must one day die, and can only leave her love behind.
This delicate balance between agony and romanticism has defined Mitski’s career, and is ever present in “Nothing’s About To Happen To Me,” the singer-songwriter’s latest album. Released on Feb. 27, the album brings back many motifs familiar to Mitski fans while distinguishing itself as completely unique in her catalogue.
Mitski constructs the thematic world of “Nothing’s About To Happen To Me” with an architect’s hand. Her feelings belong to places: a lake, a darkened tunnel, a small town, a house in which silent dogs mournfully gather. Mitski herself has cited Shirley Jackson’s novel “The Haunting of Hill House” as a primary inspiration for the album. The record’s cover also pointedly features yellow wallpaper as its backdrop.
Likewise, the music video for “Where’s My Phone?” features Mitski hiding inside a house, descending into a frenzied rage as hordes of strangers discourteously press their faces to her windows and wander inside. Her world has boundaries, walls, doorways and windows, that are encroached upon despite her best efforts.
Perhaps the unique perspective of this album owes itself to Mitski’s other pursuits — namely, her work composing lyrics for a stage adaptation of “The Queen’s Gambit.” Here, she operates not unlike a director, carefully composing sets and arranging players. The album harnesses a unique sense of place and space that sets it apart from its predecessors.
This small-scale perspective renders Mitski equal parts vulnerable and self-aware. In the album’s opening track, “In A Lake,” she explains that, “I’d never live in a small town, I’ve made too many mistakes,” but “in a big city, you can start over.” And yet, she spends the duration of the record within this small town, full of memories and regrets.
“In A Lake” is immediately one of the album’s best tracks, with its warm yet sorrowful melody brilliantly backdropping Mitski’s melancholic musings. Another gem is “Cats,” which echoes “My Love Mine All Mine” with its simple, ephemeral perspective on love.
“You say it’s so hard, but it feels simple to me,” Mitski sings, defining peace as two cats sleeping beside her and the song’s subject every night.
Mitski struggles against the reality of the 21st century on “Where’s My Phone?,” the album’s grungiest and most chaotic track. Her anxious, angry voice rings out over a jagged guitar in the chorus; the experience of listening to the song is intense and almost overstimulating at times, a reflection of the uncomfortable emotions it grapples with.
“I just want my mind to be a clear glass, clear glass with nothing in my head,” pleads Mitski midway through the song, while the wild sonic landscape suggests that her mind is anything but clear.
“If I Leave” is a standout on the album, finding Mitski grappling with the decision to walk away from the one person who sees her clearly. “But who else could love me quite as kindly as you?” she wonders. The song’s production — beginning restrained and moody before lurching into a cacophony — harkens back to the production of “Bury Me At Makeout Creek” and makes for a thrilling listening experience.
On “Instead of Here,” a calmer track that more closely resembles the restrained production of “The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We,” Mitski’s desire for the peace of isolation shines through once more.
“To feel like myself again, I won’t be here,” she sings. “I’ll be where nobody can reach.”
The album’s second single, “I’ll Change For You,” employs Mitski’s strengths as a vocalist, as her voice soars and cries out that “if you don’t like me now, I’ll change for you.” It is an achingly beautiful track that maturely explores her desire to be whatever someone else wants so long as it ensures their love for her.
“Nothing’s About To Happen To Me” is diverse in its offerings, ranging from hopeful to morose. “Rules” is shiningly upbeat with its bright horn melody, while “Dead Women,” the album’s darkest track by far, is fittingly slow and haunting.
On “Charon’s Obol,” Mitski fascinatingly invokes the ancient Greek tradition for which the song is named. In a house where other girls have died before her, the subject of the song decides to start a new life, choosing to “be the token coin in its mouth” in reference to the Greek tradition of placing a coin in a deceased person’s mouth to pay for passage across the River Styx.
“Maybe with enough time tending to that ground, she can heal the heart of her house,” sings Mitski.
In spite of the morbid images Mitski draws upon and all the references to isolation and death that fill the album’s 11-track run, she leaves the listener with a bit of hope, once more landing that delicate balance between accepting the pain of the world and dreaming of a day when it may become just a little better.
Written by: Natalie Salter — arts@theaggie.org
