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Music

Shovels & Rope's Video For "I Know" Dresses Up Your Ugly Feelings In Drag

Your ugly feelings have never looked better.

Photo courtesy of the band

Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst are your quintessential country duo—both had successful music careers before getting married, after which they joined forces to create this indomitable duo. They mix all of my favorite genres (country, folk, punk, and rock) together seamlessly, and have been releasing gorgeous “alt-country” albums years before Kasey Musgraves and Sturgill Simpson were household names.

Today we have the straight up privilege of premiering their video for "I Know,” a single off their upcoming album Little Seeds. “Competition can be an ugly side of show business, where friendly rivalries can devolve into petty jealousies,” Trent and Hearst told me over email. “In our video for “I Know,” we dress those ugly feelings up all pretty and pit them against each other in a beauty contest."

But this isn’t just any beauty contest; it’s a drag show beauty contest. The video opens with a man in a traditionally masculine role, but we quickly move from that image to a club hosting a beauty contest. The twist is that it’s a beauty contest for drag queens, which if you know anything about country would be shocking, but this is Shovels & Rope we’re talking about. They don’t do anything they don’t want to do.

So mark your calendars, Little Seeds is out October 7 on New West Records.