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With more than 21 million monthly listeners on Spotify<\/a>, Mitski is no stranger to being watched. She\u2019s been in the spotlight for more than 14 years now, since the release of her debut, Lush<\/em>, in 2012. However, it wasn\u2019t until her 2018 album Be the Cowboy<\/em> that she\u00a0rose to prominence in the indie music scene. Since then, Mitski has accumulated an almost cult-like following that has been likened to BTS or Taylor Swift stans in terms of intensity<\/a>. As someone the media repeatedly describes as a private person<\/a>, Mitski has had a conflicting relationship with her fame. She does not engage with social media, instead opting to have a manager run her accounts<\/a> as she believes that the hordes of opinions and commentary on her work (whether good or bad) negatively contribute to her self-image.<\/p>\n This pressure to live up to strangers\u2019 expectations and the all\u2013encompassing feeling of being watched shine through on Mitski\u2019s eighth studio album, Nothing\u2019s About to Happen to Me<\/em>. The project is set in a house through which Mitski explores her anxieties about being available for the public to dissect and discard. The album is vulnerable; it places all of her emotional turmoil about being a public figure on display, dressed up in metaphors about navigating personal relationships.\u00a0<\/p>\n The instrumentals in Nothing\u2019s About to Happen to Me <\/em>jump from an eerie, anxiety-inducing violin to stripped back acoustics, to a screaming guitar-drum duo over the course of the album. \u201cDead Women\u201d strikes a particularly poignant balance between these different styles of instrumentation. Opening with a delicate drumline, Mitski wastes no time before unsettling the listener: \u201cWould you have liked me better if I\u2019d died?\u201d<\/p>\n Her soft vocals invite the listener in, as if Mitski is getting ready to share a secret, only to push away again as she invokes violent imagery, breaking the fragile ambiance. The lyrics describe a woman being reinvented by outsiders who seem to have only become interested in her life after her death. Mitski is no longer Mitski, but instead what we make her out to be. Her regrets about using her real name<\/a> for her music career feel especially pertinent. She has become a stranger to herself. Toward the end of the track, everything becomes much louder, as if she\u2019s come to terms with others retelling her story, and through that choice, she has reclaimed her power.<\/p>\n