For their third album, the singer-songwriter (and Jack Antonoff protégé) Claud decided to lighten up. The follow-up to 2023’s Supermodels, which Claud co-produced with John Congleton (Alvvays, Angel Olsen), is playful and hooky, Claud’s digging into the studio side of music-making resulting in delightful moments like the openhearted yet bashful chorus of “Just Kidding” (“I wanna marry you/I wanna carry your babies/Just kidding, but I do wanna marry you”) or the sounds of them figuring out how to increase the splendor of the title track, “Me and the Music.” “She Doesn’t Love Me” sounds like a flip of the frustrated-romantic script at first, Claud singsonging instructions to their “boys at the bar,” then reveals itself to be about their frustrating relationship with the US—a sneakily placed yet precisely aimed statement that shows off Claud’s growth as a songwriter.