Heartbreaking Bravery

While this site tends to place its focus on upcoming bands, it’d feel inappropriate to not cover notable new pieces of content from an artist that very clearly influenced well over half of the bands that do get written about on here. Especially if it’s as singular as Bob Mould’s new Funny or Die-presented music video for Beauty & Ruin single “I Don’t Know You Anymore”.

Starting off with a memorably self-deprecating appearance from The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy, it doesn’t take too long for the video to reveal its fundamental structure: new age marketing-meets-old world formatting. Through a barrage of comedic happenstances involving mustaches, Apple product boxes, celebrity cameos, and limited edition appeal, Mould winds up successfully selling a whole lot of his music by the tale’s end. In real life, Mould can probably rely on his name alone (Beauty & Ruin following Silver Age and retaining all of its impact redefines his penchant for obscenely high-quality consistency) to get his music out to the masses but him selling music in an alternate world still feels like a victory.

Watch “I Don’t Know You Anymore” below and pick up a copy of Beauty & Ruin immediately.