This has been a great year for new releases, specifically by women. Back in June, I did a countdown of my eight favorite new albums by the ‘Ladies of 2024,’ and that was before Sabrina Carpenter dropped the great Short n’ Sweet.

But as good as the year has been, it might have saved the best for last — albums by my two current favorite artists, Miranda Lambert and Lana Del Rey. I say “might” because Del Rey’s promised album doesn’t have a release date yet (and maybe it won’t be any good, though I doubt that).

As for Lambert, her ninth solo studio album, Postcards from Texas, came out last month and is every bit as good as I’d hoped.

One of the reasons I love Lambert’s catalog so much is that I can make a case for every one of those nine albums as her best. Nobody I listen to has quite that level of consistency (except Del Rey, who is on an eight album winning streak of her own).

Similarly, Postcards from Texas is so good that it’s hard to decide which songs are its best. So of course that’s the challenge I’ve given myself, and over the next two weeks I’ll rank the album’s 14 songs from bottom to top.

#14. ‘January Heart’

Lambert has been married to New York City police officer Brendan McLoughlin for five and a half years, but you’d never know it from this album. Almost every song here is about the regrets of loves lost or relationships gone wrong.

‘January Heart’ is the exception — it’s a straightforward love song about a pessimist finding solace in the arms of an optimist. It’s also one of the few songs on the album Lambert didn’t write. I’m putting it last because it feels a bit out of step with the themes and mood of the rest of the album.

#13. ‘Wranglers’

This song reaches all the way back to Lambert’s early hits ‘Kerosene’ and ‘Gunpowder and Lead,’ about women fed up with being mistreated and taking matters into their own hands. It’s a solid country rocker with a great vocal. It slid down the list because it’s another one she didn’t write, and because she has written better songs in the same vein.