Fan-favorite sad girl Mitsuki Laycock, known as Mitski, released her eighth studio album “Nothing’s About to Happen to Me,” marking a musical shift with a strong emotional core. Dropped on Feb. 27, the album is different from Mitski’s earlier, grungier work, but still an excellent listen.
For most of her career, listeners and critics had pigeon-holed Mitski into a role as the ultimate sad girl. For a while, the reputation was deserved — her lyrics were full of pain, her vocals darkly melodic and her instrumentation featuring almost discordant bass and heavy percussion. It was her sad songs that got the biggest hype. Mitski filled a need, she was a voice for the pain a lot of young women carried. That pain screeched on the guitar, wailed through the lyrics, slammed against the drums and it spoke to people.
“Nothing’s About to Happen to Me” is different. It experiments a lot musically, tying in elements of brass band, rock-and-roll, swing and country to Mitski’s usual indie-grunge style. Her vocals are much lighter and more predictable. It has the added benefit of showing how talented she is as a singer. Even the lyrics are less full of palpable despair. Some are — dare I say — playful, such as the lyric “A woman always on the street called me a ditch / ‘A in ditch on my block,’ she said” in “Where’s My Phone?”
The opening track, “In a Lake,” sets the tone of the rest of the album: vaguely narrative and slightly twangy. The song follows Mitski’s reasons for not living in a small town set against a gentle acoustic guitar and a banjo. The song includes ambient audio of a city as Mitski explains that in a big city, you can start over. Mitski uses ambient audio as a tool repeatedly and for good reason — it really makes tracks pop.
My favorite song is “Rules,” which incorporates guitar and brass alongside keyboard for a playful instrumentation. The song follows the singer and her lover creating rules for their relationship, balancing the thrill of a new relationship and the struggle of harboring old wounds from previous relationships. “Number one, I’ll come over / I’ll be dressed like your best idea / Number two, you’ll be gentle / Then number three, you will ruin me,” Mitski sings.
The song also includes the line that best sums up this album and the new direction Mitski’s music seems to be taking: “So five, I’ll be alone for a while / But I’m only crying ‘cause it feels good.”
Another highlight is “Dead Women,” a song in which Mitski reflects on the ways others might prefer her dead, allowing those still alive to shape her how they’d like. The song touches on both the struggles of feeling used and deliberately misunderstood that women feel and also the ways in which parasocial relationships fans have with artists like Mitski can hold the artist back. The final lyric, “‘Saying, ‘She gave her life so we could have her in our dreams’ / ’She gave her life so we could fuck her as we please,’” paints a vivid image of the struggles of women generally, but famous women particularly.
The album maintains an undeniable melancholy, but the sadness has softened. “Nothing’s About to Happen to Me” isn’t the sobbing fit. We’re past that. It’s the moment after in the bathroom, when you’re getting yourself a glass of water and you realize you’re kind of pretty with your eyes rimmed in red.
I can already feel that there are Mitski fans who might dislike the album and its gentler style, but I urge them to give it another try. I’ve never liked when audiences punish an artist for experimenting. “Nothing’s About to Happen to Me” is undeniably an experiment for Mitski, and a successful one, if you give it a chance. It’s comforting and refreshing, while not losing the underlying honesty that defines Mitski’s sound.
Addison Fulton is the culture editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on X @dailylobo
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
