Machine Gun Kelly — who seems to be going by mgk these days — has announced a new album. Do with that information what you will.
While this is not necessarily a neutral statement, the far more interesting part of the news is that the artist is previewing lost americana (out August 8 via Interscope Records) with an album trailer with seemingly a conspicuous narrator: Bob Dylan.
You couldn't be blamed if your first thought was, "This must be AI-generated." However, if it is in fact real, it's not an entirely unprecedented occurrence. You see, Dylan has been pretty into posting lately — or at least he certainly was (ironically?) during the press cycle for the Timothée Chalamet-led biopic, A Complete Unknown.
First came some character-driven non-sequiturs on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, followed by him joining TikTok. Finally, in February, the songwriter took to Instagram to inexplicably share a video of an mgk acoustic in-store performance of Fuck It mixtape cut "Blue Skies" from back in 2016.
Some people thought Dylan had simply mistaken mgk for his beloved Chalamet. Either way, as expected, no real explanation came — unless what certainly sounds like Dylan's voice speaking through a 52-second compilation of clips of mgk is to be taken as such?
"lost americana is a personal excavation of the American dream; a journey to find what's been lost," maybe-Bob says in the trailer. "This album is a love letter to those who seek to rediscover — the dreamers, the drifters, the defiant." Listen for yourself below.