VIDEO: Dean Wareham Releases 'As Much As It Was Worth' Music Video Ahead of New Album

Dean Wareham has shared a new single, the kaleidoscopic baroque-pop stunner, "As Much As It Was Worth It." The track is off his upcoming album, I Have Nothing to Say to the Mayor of L.A which is out next Friday, October 15. The video for the song was directed by German artist Judith Berndsen and edited by Britta Phillips.

"The song is about youth and the loss of someone you loved," Wareham shared in a statement. "I wrote it after reading an essay by Zadie Smith, about joy and suffering, but one line stuck with me, it was something Julian Barnes said to her about the death of his wife: 'it hurts, just as much as it was worth.'"

Since the release of his last solo album, 2014's Dean Wareham, Dean scored a film, Noah Baumbach's Mistress America, with his wife, Britta Phillips, released an album and toured with his recently reunited group Luna. With Phillips he has also been doing regular livestreams from their home in Los Angeles (a collection largely culled from those sets, Quarantine Tapes, was released in 2020). Yet I Have Nothing to Say to the Mayor of L.A. marks the first new songs Wareham has written in almost seven years. Considering a possible reason for the delay in original material, Wareham jokes "maybe it's just too sunny in L.A."

Dean Wareham burst on the scene in 1987 with his seminal indie-rock band Galaxie 500. After 4 years he left the band and founded Luna. They went on to release 7 studio albums, enjoying world-wide critical acclaim. Since they disbanded in 2005, Wareham has released albums with fellow Luna bandmate (and wife) Britta Phillips.

The duo have also worked as film composers (Noah Baumbach films The Squid and the Whale and Mistress America). He released a self-titled album in 2014. The New Zealand-born Wareham has spent most of his life in New York City but moved to Los Angeles in 2013. He has also written a memoir Black Postcards and has appeared in several movies and TV shows.

Watch the new music video here:

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