Nobody panic, but my Spotify Wrapped top artist of 2025 just released a new album… which means I am panicking. Nothing’s About to Happen to Me is Mitski’s 8th studio album and it couldn’t have come at a better time. I think Mitski just gets it, she just gets me, and I am beyond excited to walk pensively around town with her songs blasting in headphones to feed my poetic soul.

Mitski’s distinct sound comes through from the beginning of this song. She has this soft, indie rock sound that almost has a goth-pop edge to it. I loved the thunder crackling sound effect used in this song. She isn’t one to do anything wild with the melody, meaning she won’t do large note jumps, and rarely has big belting moments. This song isn’t an exception from that, but that’s why I love it. She doesn’t chant the song by going up an octave or doing long runs, instead, she changes the emotion of the song. She goes from singing softly, to singing loud and with conviction. Lyrically, I find Mitski somehow finds ease in expressing deep and complicated feelings with few words. Her songs are somehow understated yet poignant expressions of very human feelings. I interpreted this one as being about being so in love with someone, seeing how lovable they are and how easily anyone could love them, feeling like only they could love you. They understand you like no other, and you would be that connection if you left them.

I’m literally always saying this (I misplace my phone a lot). This song could be interpreted in multiple ways. It could be about our unhealthy relationships with our phones, our online lives, and how we don’t know who we are without those things at this point. The song in general seems to be about wanting to find/rediscover yourself. It has the classic Mitski sound of indie pop, with some rock influence with the electric guitars. She’s always a bit experimental, tweaking classic sound structures to make them her own, and this song is no exception. I love how she clearly swore but put a “bleep” sound effect over it. The song also seems about spiraling emotionally, perhaps because of the uncertainty Mitski is feeling with her relationship. Regardless, you could tell she was flexing her creative muscles while creating this song, and I love it.

This song takes “If I Leave” a step further, bringing it into an even less healthy realm. How could the artist lose their partner when they have so many precious memories? They’d do anything to get their lover back, even change themselves. The song starts with a drum beat that feels very on brand for Mitski, then changes into a unique jazzy sound with piano, wind instruments, and more. It has a very beautiful and calm nature, but at its core, it’s a deeply sad song full of longing and desperation. I love it.

Now this song is folky, with a bit of a country twang to it. I love how Mitski doesn’t stick to one sound and likes to experiment as an artist; in the same way she plays with song structure. The singer expresses not feeling made to live in a small town where you know everyone and can’t escape your mistakes. In a lake, the world is open and unlimited, and in a big city, it’s crowded enough for you to reinvent yourself. The production gets creative with becoming a little more classical towards the end until it swells into city noises. Again, it’s experimental in some ways, classic in others, and an overall enjoyable listen.

The music of this song continues to have a little bit of folk influence but still has indie elements. Mitski’s soft, beautiful voice that she can make powerful and demanding at the flick of the switch makes this another song that is classically hers. Continuing the story of being in love with someone, saying they won’t leave them, she takes it to a new facet where the love interest may be considering leaving. She is telling her lover that it’s up to them whether they leave or not. She’s going to stick around with their cats while the lover figures out what they want. Another sorrowful song that will pull on your heart strings. Mitski seems to be a master of making such heart wrenching songs come across light, airy, and beautiful.

This reminded me of some older Mitski songs melodically, but still with a unique bit of a subtle folk sound. My interpretation of the lyrics is that Mitski’s lover seemingly would’ve preferred it if Mitski’s love had died. Perhaps they wanted Mitski to break it off, or perhaps, just left easily. But her love lives and so does she, making things less than easy. It’s more of a spiteful song than the others, and laces in gothic musicality towards the end. It’s haunting in a way that really pulls you in.

Another song reminiscent of prior albums but still unique enough to stand on its own. It’s once again soft, airy, with an extremely dark story. I believe this song is about finding yourself in a dark place once again. Whether it’s about depression, or another form of mental suffering, Mitski seems to have fallen back into a miserable feeling where she is unreachable. She has isolated herself and just wants to feel like herself again. If the album follows a story line, perhaps this is a state of sorrow she’s reached after the end of the relationship.

Bringing the country twang back in but with trumpets, and possibly even a saxophone, once again making it unique. This song seems to be about Mitski’s rules for recovering from a break-up. Is it the most productive and healthy? No, but it’s her journey of trying to force herself to be okay. I love the juxtaposition between the lyrics and the melody that Mitski often structures her songs around. As previously mentioned, she’ll have a lovely sounding song accompanied by heart wrenching lyrics. This takes it a step further, making it upbeat and making the sadness in the lyrics more subtle and less on the nose. As a fan of nuance in art, this really pleases me.

This has a more indie rock tone to it. Mitski has rare belting moments to seemingly hammer home how intense her feelings are. She is feeling lost and unsure about what matters in life. She has to work, she has to pay for her house, things leave her, what can she hold onto? It seems like a mess of feelings, but my interpretation is that it really boils down to feeling hopeless. I think the anger and confusion really comes through with the guitars and her tone of voice. In the same way many of her songs have a juxtaposition between lyrics and melody, this one has lyrics that seem confusing, but a melody that clarifies their meaning for me. I really appreciate how every piece of the song seems to have meaning when it comes to Mitski’s music.

Mitski uses stories of dogs, a house, and the tragic death of girls as a metaphor for finding her motivation to live again. With a small nod to the Ancient Greek’s funeral tradition of putting a coin in the deceased’s mouth to pay the ferry boat, known as Charon’s Obal (Stevens), Mitski sings about how death almost got her. However, she has decided she can heal her heart. It feels like turning a new leaf in her story, and I think this song captures that really well. Again, the lyrics seem dark, singing of death, and the melody is more light, and the guitar sounds like something someone might play around a campfire. This melody once again brings out the subtle nature of this song actually being more uplifting than it may seem. The way Mitski experiments with sounds and lyrics in this way, and as I’ve already stated, the way it all comes together to create a truly meaningful story within her songwriting, is incredibly admirable.

I love the way the guitar carries us into the song in the beginning. This song is in a lower key than other songs on this album, yet it felt very freeing and open. In the last song, Mitski is once again contemplating death. However, while she seems open to death, I still interpreted it as hope still coming back into her life. She wants to be reborn as the rain so she can see the world in a new light and love again. She may feel the overwhelming dread that comes with an ending, but deep down, she has a desire for her life to begin anew. She doesn’t want a complete end, she just wants things to begin in a different, better way. She then ends the song abruptly after the last lyrics. There’s no instrumental play out of the song. It is a sharp cut off, and perhaps the end she experienced was sudden and she’s clearly still feeling the sting of it, so she wanted to portray that within her music. Regardless, I loved the bold creative choices she made.

Mitski is a true artist in my eyes. She explores different facets of her music, making sure not to just have strong production or meaningful lyrics, but making sure it all works together in a way to be evocative. Even if that is by creating a juxtaposition, as that can bring new meaning of friction or confusion to a song. There’s not a single song of Mitski’s that I would prefer not to listen to, and this album made my love for her as a musician grow. Her creativity and artistry are inspirational, and I hope she makes many more albums in my lifetime.

Charon’s Obol Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1088792

I made a citation for it:

Stevens, S.T. (1991). Charon’s Obol and Other Coins in Ancient Funerary Practice. Phoenix, 45(3), p.215. doi:https://doi.org/10.2307/1088792.