There’s so many things to love about Kacey Musgraves. She was one of the few who made country that felt genuinely modern and progressive, in a sea of pretty chewy stadium country, and with her peers, she mined a more reflective, cosmic, liberal country without painting her views in such gaudy, broad strokes, that it overshadowed the real thing that we love country music for – good tunes.
With ‘Pageant Material’ and ‘Same Trailer, Different Park’, there was bags of potential and a handful of cool songs, but really, it wasn’t until ‘Golden Hour’ that a star was born. It was gently psychedelic and had the massive ‘High Horse’ which threw a lasso around disco, and in ‘Slow Burn’, one of the most wonderful ballads of the modern American songbook. When ‘Star-Crossed’ came along, the reviews were a little unkind, but the diversion from the Kacey everyone knew suddenly made Musgrave’s footing seem a little uneasy.
A divorce, a break-up, trying to live your best life, some Christmas songs and duets later, and ‘A Deeper Well’ arrives and it feels like there’s something riding on this. It’d be easy for Musgraves to want to return with some grand statement and something grand. However, she’s decided to go back to something akin to her roots, and she’s reminding everyone that away from the eyelashes and rhinestones, at her heart, she’s is at her best when she’s got an acoustic guitar in her lap.
The initial tracks from the LP were released and hardcore devotees were happy, but the jury was still out. They were teasers. The rest of us (fans, admittedly, but will allow for criticism and not blindly yapping along with whatever is slung our way) needed to hear the whole thing to see where we’re at.
One of the things that showed initial worry was the pretty tedious nods to smoking weed. The 420! Blaze it up! crowd have always been oddly confident in their assertion that smoking weed is something anyone else wants to hear about (hello, the whole of hip hop) when, at it’s core, it’s little more than a dependancy like alcohol, and gawd knows country music has leaned on bottles of whisky and a beer for years, so Kacey’s just following suit, but also, recognising that smoking too much weed can be problematic like someone who maybe has too many glasses of wine in the week.
She sings: “I used to wake and bake, roll out of bed, hit the gravity bong that I made… and start the day. For a while it got me by.” She pairs this with “I’m gettin’ rid of the habits that I feel are real good at wastin’ my time” and the terminally online Kacey fans who like a weed vape on their lunch are suddenly thinking maybe the need to stop getting high all the time and blowing bong smoke in their Instagram close friend videos.
Whatever she’s singing about, it’s remarkable that for all the trappings of success and large stages, Kacey Musgraves is still pretty well grounded. She’s like your cool sister who will pick you up when you’re in trouble with no judgement and sit on a roof drinking Miller with you while bitching and laughing about her terrible taste in men, or something.
And maybe that’s it with this LP ; she’s reconnecting with nature and the things that matter to her, because like she said of country – while it is incredibly fashionable right now with Beyonce and Lana donning the spurs – she’s always thought of it as ‘home’. And on ‘Deeper Well’, that’s where she’s found herself. It’s singing about breakfast, wanting to feel safe, ‘Dinner With Friends’ and the like. It’s accepting strife, it’s looking at yourself to see if you’re contributing to the drama, coupled with Kacey’s ever present yearning for something else. She’s willowy and softly sung, and this LP is reminding us that there’s a pretty sensitive woman under the last two LPs sheen.
Hardly surprising really, that Kacey is wanting something a bit real after the turbulence of the world at large these last few years. She’s been in some high falutin’ places, breathed some rarified air, but is all that better than laughing like a drain while looking like a drowned rat with your pals in a natural body of water on her IG? It might seem throwaway, but maybe this is the whole point? You go to some place of natural beauty for some gorgeous internet content, and the reality is hilariously miles away from that.
But what of this album?
Thankfully the LP itself starts off super strong with Kacey’s best track in ages, ‘Cardinal’, with its chiming guitars that’ll remind you of classic ’60s folk rock and the 90s bands influenced by that period.
If you’re a fan of The Byrds, REM, the Mamas & Papas, cool Laurel Canyon pop, you’ll hear it.
Throughout, you hear a little early John Prine. You hear a little Bobbie Gentry. She’s clearly got good taste in music, even if you can say the same for her choice in men.
In ‘Giver/Taker’, ‘Heart of the Woods’, and ‘The Architect’ are vintage Musgraves, delicately picked and mellow.
And while a lot of artists who go Country feel a bit like they’re in fancy dress, Kacey once again shows exactly what the Real Thing sounds like. It’s Southern State music for sure, but Musgraves never did suffer from hamming it up too much, instead letting that Texan air move through her music, instead of drying her out to be some kind of parody.
Because one of the things we always loved about Kacey was when she was mixing her dewy eyed love of America with barbed asides about it.
“The feeling you feel when you’re looking at something you made
The layers and ruffles in my favorite pink-champagne cake
My home state of Texas
The sky there and horses and dogs
But none of their laws”
That said, we all know that Kacey suffers from being a little thin lyrically, so on this album, we hear about casting off all the superfluous and superficial things in life and reconnecting with real things, and well… she doesn’t really tell us anything about what happened next.
But then, that’s what is so charming about Kacey isn’t it? She can be adorably and easily distracted and if this album has a couple of beige tracks on it, it doesn’t matter because she’s just so likeable and doesn’t fall foul of being so heavily serious all the fuckin’ time like Taylor, Lorde, and maybe even Hayley Williams.
Fact is, this is a breezy LP that has timed itself to come with springtime, and it feels like opening the curtains. It’s always great to have Kacey back, playing her guitar and singing her songs.
Maybe stardom sits awkwardly with her, maybe it doesn’t. This album isn’t really going to address any big themes, rather, touch on them. Maybe we don’t need to know everything? Maybe we’re better off with a bit of vaguery, what with everyone sharing too much.
Maybe this is all okay and it’s just really nice to hear Kacey singing and that’ll do for now.
The Pop Corporation 
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