Kacey Musgraves returns with her strongest album to date.
Kacey Musgraves
Middle of Nowhere
For the barbed wire-sharp humor, singular POV, and deep cuts genre savvy, this is actually the album everyone insisted her solid enough debut was. Which is to say that it’s less a return to form than it is a significant refinement and progression of her form.
It’s the consistency and focus that serve her best, and leave it to an artist of Musgraves’ caliber to show how the dreaded “maturity” tag can still mean “savagely funny” and “unapologetically hard-up and horny.” And her spectacular vocal phrasing choices make it impossible not to love this for her.
Of course she’s savvy enough to be on trend with where country stands at the moment, and she brings her (deeper) well of genre knowledge to bear, whether she’s invoking Connie Smith’s phrasing, evoking a classic Hag melody, talking shit with Miranda, or enlisting a Mariachi band.
The “since Golden Hour” read is silly given that it’s only her third album since that deserved crossover triumph. Daresay this might just be her best album, full-stop.
Noah Kahan
The Great Divide
Something to be said for the fact that, alone among his contemporary folk peers, he will allow his narrators to be unlikeable at times. That’s interesting in an era of such limited critical thought. Would that his arrangements and structures were in any way as risky.
Emily Nenni
Movin’ Shoes
Delightful, both as a genre pastiche in its style and as a thoroughly modern take on matters of the heart in its POV. She’s funny without making a whole big thing about it, and she’s just as capable of breaking a heart or two. Solidifies Nenni as an essential act.
Charley Crockett
Clovis
A pivot from the aesthetic of his Sagebrush Trilogy is in no way a surprise; the quick timing of that pivot, even by his speedrunner standards, gives whiplash. Still, this is a looser and bluesier set that plays more to his skill set than did … Ram. Carry on, sir.
Dale Watson
Unwanted
He does what he does, and he continues to do it quite well. But he’s lost some of the humor of his youth as he’s calcified his narrow No True Scotsman approach to the genre, and he needed the occasional moment of levity to cut through the self-seriousness.
Lakelin Lemmings
Get Around Boy [EP]
A level of early-Ballerini promise on this that, once again, would be enough to justify a full album but for her gender. Knows her way around song structure and the occasional genre flourish, and singing that’s at least adequate to get her points across. One to watch.
Jackson Dean
Magnolia Sage
An album that fails to offer any clear explanation either for Why Him or for whatever Target-coded product line the title is supposed to evoke beyond ill-defined rootsy, Southern signifiers. Baseline technical competence can account for only so much.
@Jonathan
Completely OT–just saw you guys Tori Amos ranking over at Slant; as a firm fan for over three decades, it was a great read. And that Top 5 is near bulletproof (I would’ve swapped out Boys For Pele for Scarlet’s Walk, but I think I’m still in that fan minority that finds the former nigh impenetrable). Either way, another well put together piece.
Thanks for that, Chris! I really enjoyed going back and listening to her entire catalog again– several of her albums, I hadn’t listened to in many years. I’ve been interested to see some of the die-hard fanbase who are *incensed* that we had The Beekeeper as her worst album, when that was literally the only point of 100% agreement in our vote, and it still struck me as having her most purple lyricism and most plodding, comatose production.
Pele’s my #1, for what it’s worth, though I generally remain in the “whichever of her first four albums I listened to most recently is her best album” camp. I appreciated Scarlet more on this re-listen than I ever have before, and unexpectedly coming into a vinyl copy of AATS about a year ago has made me a bigger fan of that album.
I really like the new one, too. It’s different out of necessity, and I love how she found a way to still make it quintessentially *her*.
In all honesty, I really like The Beekeeper, though I understand why many would be turned off by the rather straightforward, almost muted production on alot of the record (I will say I love some of the vocal melodies she does on songs like Jamaica Inn and Sleeps With Butterflies). As for Pele, I appreciate that she wanted to bring some attention to the harpsichord (much like she’d done with the piano), and I wouldn’t count it anywhere near her worst (still Strange Little Girls for me), but it’s still a tough listen for me (though I do love Talula, Caught A Lite Sneeze and Professional Widow).
I’m enjoying the Kacey Musgraves album. I like that it’s generally less serious than the last couple of albums have been and I like it more sonically as well. I do wish people like her and Ashley Monroe didn’t love reverb so much though!
I’m still loving all the texts I am getting from Musgraves after dialing the number on her early promo posters for “Dry Spell” hung in the laneway near where I live.