Day 196: Mitski – Nothing’s About to Happen to Me
One of my big regrets from my personal days of yore is that I was once at a festival and was so busy enjoying myself that I forgot to go see Mitski. To be honest, I probably wasn’t really in the right headspace for it, but it was still a bit of a bummer. Hopefully I’ll get there one day, maybe when she tours her new album, so today’s album is Mitski’s new release, Nothing’s About to Happen to Me.
Album cover courtesy of Dead Oceans
Mitski is an American singer-songwriter who went from a bit of an indie darling into a household name after going viral a few times on TikTok, first with “Nobody” becoming a trending TikTok audio in 2020 and "My Love Mine All Mine” going viral in 2023. She has released eight albums in total, with her latest before this one being her 2023 release The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We.
I’ve thought Mitski’s semi-recent online fame was something I was interested in hearing her thoughts on, since she seemed pretty reluctant to publicity in the first place. I fairly often wonder if fame in the age of social media is so horrible that it’s turning off artists from pursuing their art because they don’t want everything that goes along with it, and Mitski has talked about being commodified and dehumanised by fame:
It almost doesn’t matter what music I write and put out into the world. At the end of the day, I’m a woman in public, allowing myself to be consumed. I put out songs, but really what people are buying is the product that is me.
It’s refreshing to hear on Nothing’s About to Happen to Me that there doesn’t seem to be a willingness to pander to an audience or get a new viral hit to keep the social media interest going, it sounds completely true to her as an artist. It’s unflinching and unpretentious, showing once again why there’s such hype around her as a songwriter. Iggy Pop once called her “probably the most advanced American songwriter” and said “she can do whatever she wants,” and her latest album is yet another illustration of how true that is.
The album features Mitski singing with an orchestra and the band she toured her last album with alongside her trademark lyricism, musing a fair bit about death, mortality and identity. As beautiful and lush as the whole thing sounds, it is absolutely an album where you need to focus on the lyrics to fully appreciate it. I’m always finding myself thinking that she’s said something that I’ve thought a lot about but haven’t managed to put into words as eloquently as her. I know I’m very much her target audience, a moody lady in her 30s, but for me it’s art that makes you feel a little bit more like a person.
Mitski could just hang up her hat now and I’d still put her into my list of all-time greats, but I hope she keeps going forever. She can do whatever she wants. 9/10.