Margaret Glaspy has announced her new album I Am Both, due August 7 via ATO, and released the single “Michigan” with a video directed by Ricky Chavez. The record follows 2023’s Echo the Diamond.
A new song called “Michigan” just landed, and it’s carrying an entire promise with it: Margaret Glaspy is preparing a new album, I Am Both, due August 7 via ATO.
The lead single arrives with a video directed by Ricky Chavez. Glaspy says the track began with a visit to Michigan “a couple years back. ” describing it as “a really beautiful time.” From there. the idea grew into something more intimate—an address to the way New Yorkers can romanticize the countryside as a refuge from city intensity.
What started as scenery turned into aftermath. “It turned into a song about someone going through a bad breakup, and then deciding to just leave the city behind,” Glaspy said.
This new release also signals a personal recalibration. When Glaspy started writing for I Am Both. she said she set “a goal of getting my practice back—to walk the walk in terms of how I envision myself as a songwriter.” She described the work as hard at first. especially with “addiction to social media. ” until “something shifted.”.
After that change, she said, it felt like she’d returned to “original thought instead of being under the influence of so many outside opinions.” Her word was blunt about the stakes: “It was life-changing.”
I Am Both follows Glaspy’s 2023 record Echo the Diamond. The album’s tracklist reads like a catalog of characters and cuts. beginning with “Michigan” and closing with the title track “I Am Both.” It includes “Reminder. ” “That Rose. ” “I Thought She Was A Song. ” “Petty. ” “Common Ground. ” “James and Marie. ” “Martin Luther King Jr. ” “Sharp Knife. ” “Wildest Dreams. ” and “I Am Both.”.
For listeners who’ve been following Glaspy’s craft, the timing feels less like a routine release cycle and more like a deliberate turning inward—one last step from looking outward for signal to writing from her own center.
Margaret Glaspy I Am Both Michigan ATO Echo the Diamond Ricky Chavez New album singer-songwriter music video tracklist
So is “Michigan” the whole album or just the song? Kinda confusing.
I didn’t even realize she was dropping something Aug 7, and now I’m like… I need it. The breakup leaving the city behind part hit though.
Wait, I thought Ricky Chavez was some Michigan director or something lol. But if it’s about New Yorkers romanticizing the countryside then why is it called Michigan? I’m probably missing the point.
“Addiction to social media” as a songwriting struggle is so real but also… doesn’t that mean the album is basically an internet thing? Like the title I Am Both sounds like she’s trying to be two different people at once. Anyway I’ll listen because the tracklist looks stacked with names and stuff.