Claud announces their third studio album Me and the Music, due out October 23 via Dead Oceans. This is the first Claud album since 2023’s lauded Supermodels. Their new single and video ‘She Doesn’t Love Me,’ out now, is the first offering from the record.
‘She Doesn’t Love Me’ is, in many ways, the core of the album. It is a strident, driving anthem that doesn’t shy away from the pain – and still makes you want to, as Claud sings on the track, put your “beers in the air.”
Claud says, “I love the community I have in America and find so much optimism in people being united in seeking progress. This is a love song for that community.”
Ostensibly an unrequited love song, the track casts America as a toxic girlfriend. That metaphor comes to life in the accompanying music video, which follows Claud through a string of missed dates and unanswered calls before culminating in a sense of comfort and belonging found in community. The final bar scene features cameos from fellow Shelly members Clairo and Josh Mehling as well as Samia, Annie DiRusso, Hank Heaven, Josie Strick, Sammy Steiner, Harrison Allen, and Camille Johnson.
Does everything have to feel so heavy all the time? The 10 songs on Claud’s rich and resplendent third album Me and the Music find the 27-year-old Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter-producer grappling with that question and coming up, triumphantly, with something close to an answer: Things can be heavy, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. Things can be heavy, but that beer in your hand isn’t—why not hold it aloft for a moment, sing along with the friends surrounding you, forget your troubles for the length of a perfect indie-pop song?
Co-produced by Claud and John Congleton (Alvvays, St. Vincent), the album marks a milestone in Claud’s evolution as a producer. As encouraged by mentor Jack Antonoff, they take on a more hands-on creative role, crafting a sound that is both expansive and unmistakably their own.
Me and the Music:
- Gay Witchcraft
- Just Kidding
- The Legend
- She Doesn’t Love Me
- The Reach
- Spells and Fortune Tellers
- I Owe You
- I’m too Sensitive
- Me and the Music
- Let’s End on a Good Note
