Nothing's About to Happen to Me by Mitski

Mitski Nothing's About to Happen to Me

87
ChoruScore
14 reviews
Feb 27, 2026
Release Date
Dead Oceans
Label

Mitski's Nothing's About to Happen to Me arrives as a bruised, theatrical suite that folds domestic myth and quiet apocalypse into vivid miniature dramas, and the critical consensus suggests it more than justifies the attention. Across 14 professional reviews the record earned an 86.71/100 consensus score, with critics repeatedly pointing to songs that turn private rituals and numbness into unforgettable set pieces. Standouts named again and again include “In a Lake”, “Where's My Phone?” and “I’ll Change for You”, while tracks like “Dead Women” and “Charon's Obol” supply the album's darker, mythic counterweight.

Reviewers praise Mitski's willingness to balance orchestral intimacy and jagged rock, mapping themes of solitude, death and rebirth, surveillance and domestic decay onto arrangements that move from hushed Americana to fizzing, punkish release. Critics consistently note the record's theatricality and lyrical precision: “In a Lake” swells from folksy calm into overwhelming orchestral anxiety; “Where's My Phone?” erupts in fuzzed riffs and brittle humor; “I’ll Change for You” offers a small, tender center. Professional reviews frame the album as both a continuation of Mitski's interior storytelling and a confident musical reinvention, one that rewards repeat listens and close attention.

While most reviews are laudatory about craft and emotional clarity, a minority describe the record as occasionally risk-averse compared with past extremes, noting restraint where others hear deliberation. Taken together, the consensus suggests Nothing's About to Happen to Me stands as a major, often devastating entry in Mitski's catalog—a record where loneliness, dark humor and sonic experimentation cohere into some of her most affecting songwriting to date. Read on for the full set of reviews and track-by-track impressions.

Critics' Top Tracks

The standout songs that made critics take notice

1

Dead Woman

1 mention

"She gave her life / So we could fuck her as we please,"
Exclaim
2

In a Lake

12 mentions

"Here in a lake, you can backstroke forever… In a big city, you can start over."
Hot Press
3

I'll Change for You

11 mentions

"only to dedicate 'I'll Change For You' to the dogged pursuit of winning them back, elevated by fluttery percussion resembling a hopeful heartbeat."
Clash Music
At every turn, I learn that no one will [save me]," she admits on the following track, 'Where's My Phone?'; fuzzy guitars and unrelenting percussion capture the madness of the digital age.
C
Clash Music
about "Where's My Phone?"
Read full review
11 mentions
81% sentiment

Track Ratings

How critics rated each track, relative to this album (0-100). Only tracks that made critics feel something are rated.

View:
1

In a Lake

12 mentions
100
03:04
2

Where's My Phone?

11 mentions
100
03:09
3

Cats

10 mentions
42
02:48
4

If I Leave

10 mentions
52
03:00
5

Dead Women

8 mentions
100
03:09
6

Instead of Here

8 mentions
71
03:07
7

I'll Change for You

11 mentions
100
03:16
8

Rules

7 mentions
35
02:36
9

That White Cat

9 mentions
37
03:11
10

Charon's Obol

10 mentions
54
04:06
11

Lightning

7 mentions
73
02:57

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What Critics Are Saying

Deep insights from 15 critics who reviewed this album

Critic's Take

Mitski’s Nothing's About to Happen to Me makes its best songs into small, perfect tragedies, and the record’s highlights - “In a Lake”, “Dead Women” and “Charon’s Obol” - carry the album’s emotional architecture. The reviewer's ear lingers on how “In a Lake” swells from domestic calm into an overwhelming orchestra, how “Dead Women” delivers brutal clarity with unflinching lines, and how “Charon’s Obol” gathers the album’s themes into a mythic final image. That compression, that economy of feeling, is why these tracks stand out as the best songs on Nothing's About to Happen to Me, each one folding narrative and arrangement into a single wrenching gesture.

Key Points

  • “In a Lake” is best for how its swelling arrangement turns domestic tenderness into overwhelming noise.
  • The album’s core strengths are compression of feeling, dense metaphors, and consistent orchestral and steel-guitar threads.

Themes

isolation interior life vs outside world death and grieving domestic space surveillance/observation

Critic's Take

Mitski approaches Nothing's About to Happen to Me with a wry, forensic eye, and the best songs - notably “Dead Women” and “That White Cat” - show her at peak lyrical and sonic invention. The record yearns for disconnection while reckoning with a spotlight she never asked for, and tracks like “Instead of Here” and “I’ll Change For You” balance tenderness with mordant humour. Musically ambitious and occasionally furious, this is Mitski returning to punkish edges without sacrificing the intimate storytelling that makes her best songs resonate. The result answers searches for the best songs on Nothing's About to Happen to Me with clear standouts rooted in both lyric and shock of sound.

Key Points

  • The best song is 'That White Cat' for its thrilling punk energy and successful channeling of earlier Mitski ferocity.
  • The album’s core strengths are ambitious sonic reinvention and sharp, mordant lyricism about fame and isolation.

Themes

isolation fame and disconnection literary allusion musical reinvention

Critic's Take

Mitski sounds at once wounded and delighted on Nothing's About to Happen to Me, and the best songs - notably “Where's My Phone?” and “Rules” - show why. The album glories in a yearning for anonymity, cropping up in “Instead of Here” and the opener “In a Lake”, and Mitski sells that longing with mordant humour and precise melodies. “Rules” is especially brilliant for the contrast between hopeless lyrics and a perky, orchestrated backing, while “Where's My Phone?” is roaring, jagged and oddly Britpoppy. The result is 35 minutes of music that is thought-provoking, wrenching and often laugh-out-loud funny, which is why these tracks stand out as the best on the album.

Key Points

  • The best song is “Where's My Phone?” for its raging alt-rock, distorted solo and tone-setting power.
  • The album’s core strengths are precise melodies, atmospheric arrangements, mordant humour, and a persuasive theme of wanting to disappear.

Themes

yearning for anonymity solitude and disappearance failed relationships wry humour amid misery late 60s/70s musical references

Ho

Hot Press

Unknown
Feb 27, 2026
95

Critic's Take

Mitski returns on Nothing's About to Happen to Me with a bruised wisdom that makes the best songs such as “Where's My Phone?” and “In a Lake” feel like both confessions and instructions. The reviewer's tone is admiring and precise, noting how “Where's My Phone?” erupts into fuzzed-out riffs while “In A Lake” prescribes renewal, which answers the question of the best tracks on Nothing's About to Happen to Me. That raucous trio of “If I Leave” and “Lightning” further cements why listeners ask for the best songs on the album, because they combine catharsis and craft in a way that feels both immediate and lived-in. The overall verdict is celebratory: this is Mitski reasserting herself among the generation's finest with a record that thrills and soothes in equal measure.

Key Points

  • The best song is “Where's My Phone?” because it erupts with fuzzed-out riffs and sets the album's cathartic tone.
  • The album's core strengths are its blend of garage-rock catharsis and lyrical renewal, delivered with consistent exploration and craft.

Themes

revival of garage-rock renewal and recovery darkness beneath beauty sonic exploration
AllMusic logo

AllMusic

Unknown
Feb 27, 2026
90

Critic's Take

Mitski frames Nothing's About to Happen to Me as a tight concept record where the best songs - notably “In a Lake” and “Lightning” - trace escalating anxiety from hushed country to jagged rock. The reviewer's voice finds the album at once character-driven and unmistakably Mitski, praising how “In a Lake” opens with light country that shifts into chaotic orchestral anxiety, and how “Lightning” leaves the listener with a bleak, witty reflection. This is the kind of record whose best tracks feel like decisive narrative beats, each song a vivid scene in the same lucid, darkly humorous story.

Key Points

  • The best song, "In a Lake", is the strongest because it shifts from light country into chaotic orchestral anxiety, framing the album's emotional arc.
  • The album's core strengths are its sustained concept about catastrophizing, the blend of country, indie rock and orchestra, and dark, dark humor.

Themes

anxiety home vs outside catastrophizing isolation dark humor

Critic's Take

Mitski carries a hallucinatory logic through Nothing's About to Happen to Me, and the best tracks - notably “In A Lake” and “That White Cat” - crystallise that uneasy blend of wit and dread. The opener “In A Lake” sets a boundless, backstroking imagery that the record keeps returning to, while “That White Cat” is Mitski at her most bizarre, its menacing guitar and chanting chorus sticking in the head. Elsewhere “Where's My Phone?” and “Instead Of Here” deepen the paranoia and weariness that make these songs the album's emotional anchors. The record feels like a frenzied soundtrack for unravelling, equal parts theatrical and intimate, and those standout tracks show why the album's pleasures linger.

Key Points

  • The best song is 'That White Cat' because its menacing melody and bizarre chorus capture Mitski's strangest and most memorable moments.
  • The album's core strengths are its orchestral arrangements and a recurring theme of paranoia and reinvention woven through vivid, concise lyrics.

Themes

mortality paranoia memory and reinvention isolation domestic strife
Consequence logo

Consequence

Unknown
Unknown date
87

Critic's Take

Mitski layers theatricality and aching intimacy on Nothing's About to Happen to Me, and the best songs - like “Where's My Phone?” and “That White Cat” - condense that paradox into unforgettable moments. The record pulls the widescreen angst of her earlier work back into a folk-inflected, orchestral frame, where tracks such as “If I Leave” and “I'll Change for You” reveal themselves as the emotional center. These songs stake out the album's themes of solitude, performance, and the cost of retreat with luminous, devastating clarity.

Key Points

  • The best song, "That White Cat", is the album's emotional culmination, tying the cat metaphor to impermanence and ownership.
  • The album's core strengths are its thematic cohesion, orchestral intimacy, and precise, devastating songwriting.

Themes

performance vs. self solitude and retreat loss and impermanence cats as metaphor orchestral intimacy vs. rawness

Critic's Take

Mitski’s Nothing's About to Happen to Me finds its best songs in the unsettling vignettes that double as small-stage epics, particularly “Where's My Phone?” and “Charon's Obol”. Musically adventurous without losing lyric intimacy, the album makes those best tracks feel inevitable and devastating, each one a concentrated proof of Mitski’s restless imagination and tenderness.

Key Points

  • The best song, "Where's My Phone?", channels frayed mania with a paranoid rocker structure and cathartic sonic maelstrom.
  • The album’s core strengths are intimate, vividly drawn vignettes and adventurous arrangements that marry lyric weight to muscular instrumentation.

Themes

isolation interiority domestic decay death and rebirth rituals and numbness

Critic's Take

Throughout, Mitski balances intimate lyricism and catastrophic crescendos, turning private desperation into generational truths. This record finds its strengths in the songs that marry relatable lines with sweeping, nostalgic soundscapes.

Key Points

  • The best song, “I'll Change For You”, stands out for its desperate, memorable line and is labeled a standout by the reviewer.
  • The album's core strengths are nostalgic arrangements paired with relatable, intimate lyrics that bridge generations.

Themes

nostalgia generational divide introspection despondency romantic longing

Critic's Take

Mitski paints solitude as both sanctuary and slow-burning collapse on Nothing's About to Happen to Me, and the record’s best songs make that descent feel intimate and inevitable. From the opening calm of “In a Lake” to the aching plea of “I’ll Change for You”, Mitski stages interior scenes with uncanny specificity and little, precise gestures. The record’s centerpiece, “Instead of Here”, crystallises the album’s poetics - a small, devastating set-piece where the night sky gets the last word. This is a concept record that rewards repeat listens, and its best tracks are the ones that lodge in the mind long after the final note fades.

Key Points

  • The best song, "Instead of Here", is singled out as the album’s standout and crystallises its poetic concept.
  • The album’s core strength is its sustained exploration of isolation and interior life, rendered through intimate, specific scenes.

Themes

isolation interior vs exterior madness love and identity
80

Critic's Take

Mitski approaches Nothing's About to Happen to Me with the same rural, rustic aesthetic that marked her previous work, and the best tracks crystallize that feeling. The record's strengths lie in its pinpoint observations and relatability, making the best songs on Nothing's About to Happen to Me feel intimate and true to life.

Key Points

  • The best song(s) are those that turn small, precise observations into emotional clarity.
  • The album's core strengths are its rural aesthetic, pinpoint observations, and relatable character perspectives.

Themes

nostalgia rural aesthetic love and loss relatable characters

Critic's Take

The reviewer's prose is intimate and atmospheric, noting how the vocal quartet and lived-in instrumentation make tracks such as “I'll Change for You” feel like stumbling upon a secret set in a dim jazz bar. Overall the album's strengths are its storytelling and textural restraint, which let these standout songs register as both intimate confessions and bold narratives.

Key Points

  • The album's core strengths are its intimate storytelling, lush lived-in instrumentation, and cohesive domestic mythology.

Themes

fame and public perception identity and reinvention death and legacy domestic/household mythology isolation and reclamation

Critic's Take

Mitski leans into theatrical domesticity on Nothing's About to Happen to Me, and the record’s best tracks - particularly “In a Lake” and “I’ll Change for You” - show her at her most lucid and strange. The songs dwell in tidy, haunted rooms, trading raw confession for stagecraft and strangely graceful restraint. “In a Lake” arrives as a deranged, grandiose centerpiece with horns and smokeless diction, while “I’ll Change for You” is the album’s tender, self-effacing love song, small and precise. The result is an album that feels marshalled and theatrical, where loneliness becomes showmanship rather than melodrama.

Key Points

  • “In a Lake” is best for its deranged, grandiose finale, horn section, and theatrical image of madness.
  • The album’s core strength is its marriage of theatrical stagecraft and intimate, restrained songwriting about loneliness.

Themes

loneliness theatricality domestic nightmares memory and delusion isolation

Critic's Take

As Joshua Mills observes in a dry, admiring register, Mitski's Nothing's About to Happen to Me trades flashy reinvention for craft, and the best songs prove the point. The opener “In A Lake” sets a melancholic tone with folksy squeezebox before swelling into orchestral drama, while buzzy lead “Where's My Phone?” and the delicate “Cats” stake out obvious best tracks for both fans and TikTok hunters. The reviewer crowns “Charon’s Obol” the standout - a classically produced slice of symphonic pop that feels old-fashioned in the most satisfying way. Overall, Mills frames the album as slightly risk-averse but brimming with brilliantly written, well-performed songs, so queries about the best tracks on Nothing's About to Happen to Me should start with “Charon’s Obol”, “In A Lake” and “Where's My Phone?”

Key Points

  • The best song is "Charon’s Obol" because the reviewer calls it the best track and praises its classically produced, symphonic pop grandeur.
  • The album’s core strengths are finely crafted songwriting, tasteful production, and a balance of folk, Americana and orchestral pop delivered with panache.

Themes

melancholy heartbreak mystique/distance orchestral pop folk/Americana influences