She’s back baby! Melissa Etheridge released her a music video for her new single “As Cool As You Try” from her upcoming album One Way Out. The full album drops September 17th and will be followed up by a UK tour in 2022 (see dates and tickets here).
The video is simple — Etheridge playing to a divey little gay bar with a some very fashionable dykes vibing, but casually. “The video is fun. The inspiration comes from my days long, long ago when I played in the bars so we wanted to capture that,” says Etheridge. As the video goes on, the bar patrons vibe increasingly hard, eventually ending up in a synchronized semi-line dance.
It’s odd to see the effects of the pandemic in a music video — this bar would be empty in 2019, but in 2021, it would probably considered dangerously crowded in some cities. It’s not relevant to the song at all, just a sad reminder that the challenges to build lesbian community are many, and for me, it brought to mind the importance of efforts like The Lesbian Bar Project.
