Bob Mould returns with ‘Blue Hearts’

Provocative first single “American Crisis” available now

Legendary singer-songwriter-guitarist-bandleader Bob Mould has announced the release of an explosive new album. Blue Hearts arrives via Merge Records on Friday, September 25th. Pre-orders are available now on LP, CD, and tri-color Peak Vinyl in the Merge store, or your favorite independent record shop.

Mould’s 14th solo LP, which follows last year’s critically acclaimed Sunshine Rock – is heralded by the premiere of the provocative first single, “American Crisis,” available now for streaming and download. An official lyric video is streaming now via YouTube.

“‘American Crisis’ is a tale of two times,” says Mould. “Past Time and Present Time. The parallels between 1984 and 2020 are a bit scary for me: telegenic, charismatic leaders, praised and propped up by extreme Evangelicals, either ignoring an epidemic (HIV/AIDS) or being outright deceitful about a pandemic (COVID-19).” From today through June 7th, all of the proceeds from “American Crisis” will benefit OutFront Minnesota and Black Visions Collective.

Blue Hearts is perhaps the most directly confrontational work of Bob Mould’s four-decade career, a raging 14-track collection described by its creator as “the catchiest batch of protest songs I’ve ever written in one sitting.” Produced by Mould at Chicago’s famed Electrical Audio with longtime collaborator Beau Sorenson engineering, the album – which once again features backing from the crack rhythm section of drummer Jon Wurster and bassist Jason Narducy – nods to the veteran singer-songwriter’s groundbreaking past while remaining firmly planted in the issues of the day. Where Sunshine Rock captured Mould at his most “violently happy” (according to Rolling Stone), Blue Hearts is both seething and pointed, the raging yin to the previous album’s positive yang. The acoustic opener, “Heart on My Sleeve” catalogues the ravages of climate change, while “American Crisis” – written initially for Sunshine Rock but deemed “too heavy” by its writer – spits plainspoken fire at the people who fomented this catastrophic moment in history: “I never thought I’d see this bullshit again / To come of age in the ’80s was bad enough / We were marginalized and demonized / I watched a lot of my generation die / Welcome back to American crisis.”

Elsewhere, the political and personal collide on songs like “Everyth!ng to You,” “The Ocean,” and the salaciously autobiographical “Leather Dreams,” the latter two composed earlier this year during an epic three-day writing binge prior to January 2020’s sold out Solo Electric tour. As volatile, hook-laden, and aggressively honest as anything in Mould’s remarkable canon, Blue Hearts is fueled by a pervasive sense of déjà vu, its angry anthems of today equally informed by his experiences and memories of the early 1980s. Back then, Mould was a self-described “22-year-old closeted gay man” touring with the one and only Hüsker Dü as AIDS consumed his community. Leaders – including the one in the White House – seemed content to let the epidemic kill a generation. No wonder Bob Mould found his mind wandering back…

“We have a charismatic, telegenic, say-anything leader being propped up by evangelicals,” he says. “These fuckers tried to kill me once. They didn’t do it. They scared me. I didn’t do enough. Guess what? I’m back, and we’re back here again. And I’m not going to sit quietly this time and worry about alienating anyone.”

CD

  1. Heart on My Sleeve
  2. Next Generation
  3. American Crisis
  4. Fireball
  5. Forecast of Rain
  6. When You Left
  7. Siberian Butterfly
  8. Everyth!ng to You
  9. Racing to the End
  10. Baby Needs a Cookie
  11. Little Pieces
  12. Leather Dreams
  13. Password to My Soul
  14. The Ocean

Buddy Iahn
Buddy Iahn

Buddy Iahn founded The Music Universe when he decided to juxtapose his love of web design and music. As a lifelong drummer, he decided to take a hiatus from playing music to report it. The website began as a fun project in 2013 to one of the top independent news sites. Email: info@themusicuniverse.com