Mitski’s newest album Nothing’s About to Happen to Me, released on February 27th, 2026, is her eighth studio album. The album contains themes of hysteria, heartbreak, isolation, claustrophobia, madness, loneliness, depression, impending doom, death, patriarchal oppression, and of course, cats. Attention cat lovers, this album is for you. 

Nothing’s About to Happen to Me album cover (@mitskileaks/Instagram)

Mitski’s Nothing’s About to Happen to Me is also heavily inspired by American novelist and short story writer Shirley Jackson’s works The Haunting of Hill House (1959) and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962), with its gothic and psychological elements and imagery in the music videos for the songs “Where’s My Phone?” and “If I Leave”. Inside the physical copy of the album vinyl there is even a portrait of Shirley Jackson on the sleeve, a.k.a. on the wall of the Tansy House. In addition to the imagery in the music videos, the overall narrative of the album focusing on a secluded woman living in an old decaying Victorian home adds to the gothic vibe of Nothing’s About to Happen to Me. 

@mitskileaks/ Instagram

In an interview with The Current, Mitski explains the idea or rather the character she had in mind for the concept of this album: “The general character I had in mind for this album concept is this sort of reclusive, weird woman living alone in an old house that maybe she inherited but can’t exactly manage. I wanted to explore kind of like a house as a person’s mind and all the stuff accumulating in an old house, like the various generational traumas that might accumulate in a person’s mind.” Sounds like the plot of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, right? 

Continuing with the We Have Always Lived in the Castle references, Mitski’s music video for “Where’s My Phone?”, directed by Paul Noel, follows a woman (played by Mitski) running around her old, cluttered home trying to protect her younger sister from the intruding neighbours outside their manor. While all this chaos is happening, their elderly mother wanders the halls mindlessly. 

Later in the interview with The Current, Mitski goes on to talk about the album’s themes of cats and patriarchal oppression, connecting them together: “Cats just aren’t obedient. It’s not in their language or mentality to follow commands. […] They don’t follow a hierarchy. They just live independently. […] And I think often cats demonized for that in a similar way that I think a lot of women maybe are misunderstood for that quality, just because we might not be exactly what women are supposed to be in patriarchy, just because maybe we don’t, I don’t know, follow a certain narratives that are expected of women.” 

@mitskileaks/Instagram

After having personally listened to the album on repeat since it was released, I highly recommend this album to anyone who enjoys thrifting vintage clothes or furniture, cats, little trinkets, weird and disturbing literature (specifically anything by Shirley Jackson), or to anyone craving a new album to listen to while completing schoolwork in a quiet café. Mitski’s Nothing’s About to Happen to Me is the perfect mixture of calm, quirky music and complex lyrics with deep meaning.