Kevin Bronson on April 28th, 2022

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Put your thinking caps on and enjoy these great new songs, and their accompanying videos, from MUNA, Kevin Morby and Tegan and Sara …

MUNA, “Kind Of Girl”

We’re not sure if either the hit single “Silk Chiffon” or the follow-up “Anything But Me” prepared us for this: L.A. trio MUNA, having a country moment. “Kind Of Girl” is the new single from their self-titled album, out June 24 via Saddest Factory Records. “This song is the album’s country moment, and in some ways we feel it is the heart of the record,” says Katie Gavin, who penned “Kind Of Girl.” “This song explores the power of language and the words we use to describe who we are and who we want to be.” Of the video, directed by Taylor James, she says it “highlights another layer of meaning that we feel the song holds, which is that we as queer people are particularly vulnerable when we are sharing how we identify and how we would like to be perceived. We wanted to play with the gendered nature of this song because we all three have different relationships to girlhood (and Naomi [McPherson] is non-binary, so not a girl at all!). It was a gift to be able to king for this video in a way that felt earnest and comfortable and hot. The experience brought home the fact that it’s not enough for queer and trans people to be clear about who we are — we also need a community around us that hears us, believes us, honors us and supports us. We’re very proud of what we made and grateful to everyone who was a part of it. We hope the bigots absolutely hate it.” MUNA’s Oct. 25 show at the Wiltern is sold out; tickets remain for the Oct. 26 show.

KEVIN MORBY, “A Random Act of Kindness”

“This Is a Photograph,” Kevin Morby’s seventh album, comes out May 13. But picture this: “A song where each line could be interpreted in two completely different ways,” Morby says of “A Random Act of Kindness.” ” “For example, when I sing the words ‘Out of trust …,’ it could be heard as either I have lost my sense of trust in something or that I am committing an act with trust as my motive. It’s a song about the menacing nature of the sun rising during a dark time in one’s life only to further illuminate their pain and suffering — and how during these periods it is often the selfless acts of strangers that keeps a person going.” Christopher Good’s video finds Morby telling anyone who will listen.

TEGAN AND SARA, “Fucking Up What Matters”

OK, this one is subversive and hilarious: Tegan and Sara frolic around Los Angeles in a Tony Wolski-directed music video about … making a music video (wink). “Fucking Up What Matters” is the sister duo’s first song for their new label, Mom+Pop, and a tease from their forthcoming 10th album. “‘Fucking Up What Matters’ felt like an ode to the moment in your life when you realize that you have most, if not all of the things you wanted and you start to think about what would happen if you just walked away from it all,” Tegan Quin says. “It’s the moment in the middle of the night when you start to daydream about something else, something you never imagined. It’s the feeling you have when you think you might have hit a new low, and yet you’ve never felt so good. Sometimes it’s admitting that you can’t stop yourself from fucking up what matters, that you feel your strongest. And as my mom would say, it’s often when we’re fucking up what matters, that we’re learning the most about ourselves.” In other news, production has begun on the Amazon FreeVee series, “High School,” based on the memoir they published in 2019.