My final new release of the week is an album that came out at the beginning of the month: Kacey Musgraves’ seventh album, Middle of Nowhere.
I’m a bit shocked that Musgraves already has seven albums under her belt, even if the number is padded a bit by a Christmas release. I’m a big fan of her debut, 2013’s Same Trailer Different Park, and her Album of the Year-winning fourth album, 2018’s Golden Hour, but haven’t found much time for the rest.
Continuing my countdown of 2024 notable album releases by women…
The Ladies of 2024
#7 – Kacey Musgraves – Deeper Well
I really wanted to love this album, having been firmly on the Kacey Musgraves bandwagon since her 2013 debut, Same Trailer Different Park. That album was such a breath of fresh air, and might still be the best thing she’s done.
Sophomore effort Pageant Material offered more sharp songwriting, and 2018’s Golden Hour was a revelation, crossing genre boundaries on its way to a well-deserved Album of the Year Grammy.
Kacey Musgraves’ new album hasn’t made much of a splash, with only one of its songs appearing on the Hot 100 — ‘Deeper Well,’ all the way down at #76.
But Musgraves’s duet with Zach Bryan, ‘I Remember Everything,’ is still going strong. It hit #1 weeks ago — giving both artists their first chart-topper — and is still camped out in the top ten, at #7.
Kacey Musgraves won an Album of the Year Grammy for 2018’s Golden Hour, a wonderful blend of moody pop and her gentle country sound. It was her third strong release in six years (not including a Christmas album), and at the time it looked like she was on her way to superstardom.
Her 2017 marriage to singer Ruston Kelly ended in divorce in 2020, prompting a break-up album that promised to be a real beauty. Instead, 2021’s Star-Crossed was a muddled misfire, an artsy album that shared none of the DNA that made her earlier work so compelling.
It has been an excellent decade for women in country music, even if country radio continues to stubbornly ignore their music. Five of my top 20 albums are by women who are either country (or at least country-adjacent) artists.
One of the most critically-acclaimed of those records is Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour, the Texan singer-songwriter’s third and best album.
Meet Me In Montauk 