Latest Release
- 8 MAY 2024
- 16 Songs
- Deeper Well · 2024
- Deeper Well · 2024
- Deeper Well · 2024
- Golden Hour · 2018
- Golden Hour · 2018
- Deeper Well · 2024
- Deeper Well · 2024
- Golden Hour · 2018
- Deeper Well · 2024
- Deeper Well · 2024
Essential Albums
- No one saw it coming. Not even Kacey Musgraves. There’s a reason her shocked expression at the 61st Grammy Awards—at which she won Album of the Year—went viral. After all, her 2018 album Golden Hour had been, at that point, the riskiest of her career: A passion project dedicated to fresh love, one the singer made with a new team of producers, and a little bit of LSD. Yet Golden Hour unexpectedly became an award-winning platinum smash, turning Musgraves from a critical darling with a devoted fanbase to a global superstar. Produced by Ian Fitchuk and Daniel Tashian—and recorded in part above Sheryl Crow’s horse barn—Golden Hour is a masterpiece of ethereal country-pop. The 13 tracks here run the gamut from psychedelic to disco-forward, all of them held together by Musgraves’ poignant, witty writing and gorgeously honed vocal delivery. Yet what’s so magical about Golden Hour is that, for all its progression, it never finds Musgraves abandoning the sounds that made her previous albums so electrifying and endearing. “Slow Burn”, in its minor-key opening strums, finds Musgrave pushing her trademark acoustic guitar through a kaleidoscope of new sounds, while “Space Cowboy” is a perfect country ballad—the kind of song that feels just as wandering as a lover’s desires. And the album’s closer, “Rainbow”, is a timeless offering of comfort to queer youth: “It’ll all be all right,” she sings. They’re the last words on the album—a potent parting gift. There are also plenty of thrilling surprises to be found on Golden Hour. “Mother” is a sparse meditation on parental love that’s barely a minute long—performed on a piano, and aided with a little bit of psychedelic drugs—while the cutting “High Horse” is a truly danceable disco tune. And though all of these songs are precisely written, Golden Hour finds Musgraves playing around with her sonic palate, slowing down and stretching out whenever she wants; inspired by the likes of Bon Iver, she even employs a futuristic vocoder on songs like “Oh, What a World”. With Golden Hour, Musgraves proved that country music could still stretch and reach new heights of imagination—and that millions of listeners were willing to come along for the ride. Oh, what a world, indeed.
- From right out of the gate, Kacey Musgraves knew exactly who she wanted to sing to—and to whom she didn’t. “I’d rather have 100,000 people who really get what I’m doing and like it for what it is than a million who can take it or leave it,” she told a reporter around the time she released her 2013 debut, Same Trailer Different Park. It was a strategy that paid in dividends for the Texas-born Musgraves, who got her start as part of a yodelling duo called the Texas Two Bits before she was even a teenager, singing at the inauguration of President George W. Bush. After a stint in Austin, Musgraves moved to Nashville, and quickly developed relationships with writers like Luke Laird and Shane McAnally, with whom she would co-produce her debut. And they immediately knew she was different. While 2012 brought bro-country and songs about beer, trucks and the endless tailgate, Musgraves wanted more. She wanted to sing about real life and imperfect people, about loving who you want to love and about smoking the occasional bit of weed. And she wanted to talk about the real side of small-town existence—the pain, disappointment and struggles that those party-centric radio hits by her male peers seemed to ignore. Same Trailer Different Park’s first single, “Merry Go ’Round”, did just that, offering up a plain-spoken, truth-telling ballad that cut right through the bacchanal (it would eventually win a Grammy for Best Country Song). Tracks like “My House” pay tribute to the trailer park, while the silently strummed “It Is What It Is” confesses a desire to find someone who will do in the moment, instead of someone who will say, “I do”. But it was the album’s third single, “Follow Your Arrow”, that would make history. Not only did the song mention same-sex love—"Kiss lots of girls, if that’s something you’re into”—it was was co-written with McAnally and Brandy Clark, both of whom are queer. When “Follow Your Arrow” won Song of the Year at the Country Music Association Awards, Musgraves made sure McAnally and Clark stood right beside her—marking the first time two openly gay artists appeared on the CMA stage to accept their trophy. From that moment on, it was clear that allyship was something inextricable from Musgraves’ music—and that she was destined to become one of the most exciting and inclusive artists the genre had ever seen.
Albums
- 2024
- 2021
- 2018
- 2015
Artist Playlists
- Wise words from the progressive country singer.
- Kaleidoscopic country rendered in worlds both down-home and far out.
- Find out what makes the cutting-edge country troubadour tick.
- Lean back and relax with some of their mellowest cuts.
- Apple Music’s live series continues with Kacey Musgraves in New York City.
- The singer-songwriter opens up to Zane about the very personal stories that inspired her new album.
- 2021
Live Albums
Appears On
- Fancy Hagood
- Judah & The Lion
- “It cuts to the core of the human experience.”
- A deep dive on themes from Kacey’s life and album.
- The artist on “Deeper Well."
- “High Horse” represents the best of Kacey’s musical influences.
- Kelleigh Bannen revisits Kacey’s fabled fourth album.
- Fancy hangs with ultimate country trailblazer, Kacey Musgraves.
- Music from Kacey Musgraves' 'star-crossed' album.
More To See
About Kacey Musgraves
Kacey Musgraves knew from the drop that there were only two ways she’d make a career: Hers or no way at all. “There’s a lot of freedom when you do that from day one, because there’s no expectations on you,” she told Apple Music in 2018. “Especially me, coming from the Nashville modern country music genre. There can be a lot of expectations, stipulations—a lot of rigid lines, especially as a female. And I was just like, ‘That’s not going to be me.’” A native of East Texas, Musgraves (born in 1988) started releasing music while still in high school, making it to the reality show Nashville Star only to place seventh out of 10—an early sign that she was both of the industry and outside it. Her official debut, 2013’s Same Trailer Different Park, established Musgraves—alongside artists like Pistol Annies and Chris Stapleton—as a quietly progressive voice in a conservative field, capable of tackling subjects like LGBTQ rights or the hypocrisy of small-town life without shedding her rootsy appeal. In 2014, Same Trailer won her a Grammy; Pageant Material followed a year later. Musgraves’ 2018 LP, Golden Hour, which won the Grammy for Album of the Year, steered even further away from Nashville conventions, establishing her as something closer to a ’70s singer-songwriter than a modern country star. “I guess you could call it being an outsider,” Musgraves said. “But really it’s just me doing whatever I feel like is best for me and my music and whatever inspires me.”
- HOMETOWN
- Golden, TX, United States
- BORN
- 21 de agosto de 1988
- GENRE
- Country