Does everything have to feel so heavy all the time? Claud Mintz fights with this question all the time. Not polite little tiffs, either: Big, dragout, existential wars, the kind that might push you to eventually change the tenor of your whole life. The 10 songs on their 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?

Me and the Music is Claud’s first album in three years, since 2023’s acclaimed Supermodels. Both Supermodels and 2021’s Super Monster, were largely inspired by “this one situationship” that, they realised sometime during the writing of Me and the Music, “really wasn’t ever anything.” Supermodels was such a serious record, and I just sulked in feelings for so long,” says Claud. “There’s a difference between being sincere with life and taking life too seriously.” Coming to that realization changed everything: On Me and the Music’s title track, they sing that “this is the last song I let you ruin,” and they meant it. Once Claud wrote that song—at the famed Electric Lady Studios with their friends Hank Heaven and Annie DiRusso—they began to feel totally unburdened. “It released a lot of regret that I was carrying with me, and it allowed me to be like… this is so fun,” they say. “Making music is so fun.” Me and the Music’s MO, then, is songs that capture the knottiness of growing up and existing in the world that don’t lose a sense of playfulness or fun. It’s a quintessential slice-of-life record, touching on new romance and inside jokes and Gap commercials and the band America and the place America, and treating all those things with care and consideration.

Me and the Music lead single “She Doesn’t Love Me” is, in many ways, the core of the album—a light-feeling song about what it’s like to be queer and trans in America in the 2020s. (It is a strident, driving anthem that doesn’t shy away from pain—and still makes you want to, as Claud sings on the track, put your “beers in the air.”) When Claud wrote the song with Heaven and DiRusso, they felt firmly that it should be a yacht rock song; the demo ended up “lo-fi and indie” anyway. Me and the Music was produced by Claud and John Congleton (Alvvays, St. Vincent) and represents a full-circle moment for Claud, who finally felt, with this record, that they were a confident enough producer to assume a co-producer role (and have since gone on to produce a string of viral singles by Romy Mars). Collaboration is, of course, an essential part of Claud’s work—who are we without our friends? In addition to Claud, they’re one-quarter of Shelly, a band they founded with Clairo, Noa Getzug and Josh Mehling.

Me and the Music sees Claud reuniting with their longtime collaborator Dan Nigro (Olivia Rodrigo, Chappell Roan) on “The Legend.” It explores the feeling of being deeply in love with someone who doesn’t want to be seen with you, says Claud: “It’s sort of about a shitty relationship, and wanting to flaunt love, but not being able to do that,” they say. But, if Me and the Music has a true love song, it’s “I Owe You,” a dream-pop road song that’s devotional and rich. It captures the spirit of Me and the Music as a whole: Taking things day by day, taking stock of what’s around you, and embracing the beautiful things when they arrive. That doesn’t feel so heavy.