Over the 4th of July weekend, the pop charts’ favorite red-haired Englishman Ed Sheeran released two new songs: an acoustic ballad called “Best Part of Me” featuring YEBBA and a capital-R rock anthem called “BLOW,”which co-stars Bruno Mars and Chris Stapleton. If the group of collaborators sounds unlikely, the assaultive song—somewhere off the coast of hair metal stylistically—is even more puzzling.
In the spirit of the track’s apparent playfulness (nothing fun about the actual process of listening, if you ask me), Bruno Mars has slid into the director’s chair to helm the song’s tongue-in-cheek video. In the energetic clip, set at Los Angeles’ Viper Club, an all-girl band fronted by America’s Next Top Model‘s Cherish Waters (Sheeran), model Jordan Kelly DeBarge (Bruno Mars), and actress Cheyenne Haynes (Stapleton) lip-syncs and rocks along to the song on-stage.
Along with “Best Part of Me” and “BLOW,” Sheeran has released collaborative singles with Justin Bieber (“I Don’t Care“), Chance the Rapper and PnB Rock (“Cross Me“), and Khalid (“Beautiful People“). The songs will all be included on Sheeran’s upcoming album of collaborations—the aptly titled No. 6 Collaborations Project—which is due out this Friday (July 12). Watch the Mars-directed “BLOW” video below.
