“Where’s My Phone?” Mitski Asks.
Shortly after the news of Mitski’s upcoming album, Nothing’s About to Happen to Me, fans were given the album’s first single, “Where’s My Phone?” and corresponding music video. With album art and merchandise for the new release available, the aesthetic of Nothing’s About to Happen to Me presented itself definitively. Much of the artstyle surrounding the album harkens back to the turn of the 20th century, something that can also be quickly distinguished in the music video for “Where’s My Phone?”.
The video’s aesthetics may match the single’s cover art, but the music video for “Where’s My Phone?” does not begin with the track’s killer drum fill. Instead, Mitski, decked out in a babushka-esque headscarf and chic blue velvet trench coat, lugs a bucket to a well. The drum fill only begins as Mitski trips, landing on the ground over and over again to the beat. Many of the song’s production choices align with the cinematography of the music video. The camera shifts around rapidly towards the end of the video, similarly to the song’s introductory drum fill aligning with Mitski’s falls. But the franticness of the video, both in terms of camera movement and lens, as well as the reckless abandon the actors of the video find themselves in, is what truly makes the single interesting.
“Where’s My Phone?” reckons less so with literally uncovering where someone has left their mobile device, and more so with the ways in which we panic upon discovering we cannot find our phones. How many times have you panicked because you realized your phone wasn’t in your pocket, only to find it misplaced on a nearby surface? It’s a very common, almost daily, heart attack that most people get to experience. But for Mitski, this meaning holds a double entendre. While Mitski has clearly distanced herself and broken out of the mold that is “TikTok artist,” it is undeniable that for a period of her career, she was associated with fifteen second snippets of her tracks to be used in the background of couples dancing, in the case of “My Love Mine All Mine,” or people sobbing, in the case of “Nobody.” Where did Mitski’s phone go? Where did her connection with her audience go?
Mitski moved her social media duties from herself to her management. It’s well established that while Mitski controls what content is ultimately posted in her name, she herself is not engaging with fans on a regular basis. This is a swift change from her Bury Me At Makeout Creek days, where she was active on her Tumblr blog and promoting her own music. Mitski essentially states the thesis of the track to her listeners, with the refrain “Where’s My Phone?/Where’d it go?” devolving into “Where’d I go?”.
That’s a question that Mitski has received quite frequently. Where did Mitski go? Is she dropping new music? With at least two plans for hiatuses in the last decade of her career, it seems that some find it miraculous that she is still making music at all. Mitski herself has been very vocal that she has had to find a new way to navigate her weird journey with fame. Yes, Mitski has moved on in some ways from how scrutinized she felt by the public, but “Where’s My Phone?” makes it clear that this topic will still come up in her lyrics.
“Where’s My Phone?” is ultimately the perfect track to kick off Nothing’s About to Happen to Me’s album cycle. The track’s raucous beginning harkens to the more rock-influenced albums earlier in Mitski’s career. While that sound has appeared on more recent albums, like The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We, it’s still thrilling for Mitski fans to hear a track that feels more in line with Be the Cowboy, Puberty 2, and Bury Me at Makeout Creek. It’s clear that Mitski is also still willing to be playful, blatantly censoring the lyric “Fuck” with a full stop daytime talk show sort of bleep.
A dissonant and menacing track, “Where’s My Phone?” is exciting. It’s a promise of clever commentary from one of indie-rock’s best lyricists, a return to old sounds, and an interesting premise to boot. Whether Nothing’s About to Happen to Me will be a concept album still remains to be seen, but it will definitely be an interesting addition to Mitski’s catalogue.
