Kacey Musgraves - 2013 Anticipation

"The Dah She Got Divorced " is wonderful!

thanks for the reminder on this; imagine it's going into heavy rotation for a bit.

The lyrics are nothing special -- it's the taunting string arrangement that kills

Yeah, excellent album, thanks to lex for the tip here.

Kree Harrison, a current top 4 contestant on American Idol, is best buds with Kacey, sings on her record, and is I believe the younger sister (or cousin?) of Kacey's guitarist.

Brandy Clark album is pretty strong, especially for being, you know. free.

So has anyone heard Musgraves' earlier releases? Does anyone have any of them? What has she done between then and now?

brandy clark is sad!!!

rural america sure sounds strung the fuck out on the basis of this thread

Brandy Clark is playing NYC this week i think

So has anyone heard Musgraves' earlier releases? Does anyone have any of them?

i was curious about these too. they seem to be extraordinarily rare. the most recent one, self-titled (from 2007, when she was 18) was apparently sold here. but now it is sold out, and, as the site notes, "WHEN THEY'RE GONE, THERE WILL BE NO MORE OF THIS CD... EVER!" however, if you would like to buy a copy, there is one on amazon for $370 rn lol. anyway, apparently the album has a few miranda lambert co-writes on it.

as for the others, idk where they were actually sold. buuut i do see them (+ the 2007 one) on this weird probably-sketchy site called soundsbox?? the preview clips appear to be legitimate... but idk whether to trust the site. it seems to be along the same vein as that alltunes/allofmp3 site from last decade, which sold mp3s for dirt cheap prices and was/is way illegal.

also i am listening to the brandy clark album rn and it is really good!!

ha i asked kacey about them and she was pretty much THANK GOD THOSE ARE NEVER GOING ON ITUNES

she said she started off doing really traditional "yodelly" stuff and also went through a proper emo phase

well i need to talk to kacey musgraves about that immediately

she wasn't proud of it!

She's the Sunday-afternoon opener at Bonnaroo this year. Be interesting to see how she fares there. I imagine "Follow Your Arrow" will go over big.

Honestly, watching her I was wondering how she's been faring opening for Kenny Chesney in giant arenas (stadiums?).

xpost Sounds like Emmylou trying to suppress her own first album! Won't stay missing for long ...

she wasn't proud of it!

well idk i think there are a lot of audible connections between emo crossover and pop country so i just always enjoy seeing that connection made literal

Listening to "Merry Go Round" at the moment... this is really good

http://vimeo.com/34610090

^^^ Most emo-country thing I've ever seen. Surprised this sort of aesthetic isn't more widespread actually.

From the show I saw:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU-FrI7hzoA

Clicked on Matt's link above, wondering what it was, and preparing to type "if you think *that's* emo you wanna take a look at "If I Die Young" by the Band Perry.

Heh.

oh man I like "If I Die Young" a little too much than is healthy, I think

It's time to tip our hats to Miranda Lambert, who with Musgraves, Ashley Monroe, and Pistol Annies albums heads a cottage industry that's produced three of the year's best albums.

i honestly think the brandy clark album/soundcloud set might be the best of the lot (and she falls within that cottage industry, too)

(still working out what i think about the new pistol annies)

seems like women country music artists are just miles ahead of men these days. probably there's a thread about this somewhere. I wonder if it's that the audience for country music these days is heavily women (I think that's true?); because then male singers & songwriters are expected to address different concerns to that audience than women are; & in particular women can give more attention to observation and less on causing things to happen.

Surely many of Lambert's characters cause things to happen...

yeah I don't know how to draw the right contrast

Surely many of Lambert's characters cause things to happen...

Fires to start, bullets to fly, alcohol to be guzzled, new girlfriends to be terrified...

is that the tracklisting?

aw she sang "island in the sun", one of the weezer songs i like :)

apparently brandy clark's album is supposed to see a legit release at some pt this year (or at least that was true in feb. when she gave an interview)

i still need to listen to ashley monroe + pistol annies

she did a cover of miley's "see you again" in 2008

http://www.myspace.com/music/player?sid=91337732&ac=now

yeah i think her version can be bought on itunes (and a version of "apologize" that she did)

seems like women country music artists are just miles ahead of men these days

I'd say that the same holds true in rock and pop as well, but, yes, I agree with you, women dominate the list of interesting artists in country.

When Sleater-Kinney were at their peak, I remember thinking that women with guitars was the future. I just didn't expect it to be in Nashville.

I think maybe the innately conservative nature of country music makes it easier to make your mark whenever you deviate from the norm. Of course, it doesn't always work out (looking at you, Brad), but women in particular have (and always have had?) perhaps more potential to do something interesting in this milieu. I mean, god knows, the dudes have ruled, but the women (from Patsy to Dolly to Loretta to Emmylou and so on) have always rocked the boat in the best possible way. There's just so much more they can write about, and it doesn't hurt that the mode for young country dudes right now seems to be almost exclusively party music. But then, as Alfred pointed out, it's a pretty close circle of country ladies doing the interesting stuff.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/arts/music/out-and-riding-high-in-nashville.html?hp&_r=0

Changes do seem to be afoot in Nashville. Mr. McAnally cites the reaction to Ms. Musgraves’s debut, the closest thing country has to a Generation Y manifesto, as evidence of “hunger” for a new kind of country music. The close-knit group of collaborators that produced that album includes Mr. McAnally; Ms. Musgraves; Mr. Osborne; Luke Laird, a songwriter-producer with dozens of hits under his belt; and Brandy Clark, a rising singer-songwriter, and a lesbian.

Like previous Nashville iconoclasts they are changing country from the inside, upholding its songwriting traditions while tweaking its clichés and tipping its sacred cows. Ms. Musgraves’s mission statement song is “Follow Your Arrow,” co-written by Mr. McAnally and Ms. Clark, which spunkily advocates nonconformity of various kinds, including same-sex romance: “Make lots of noise/Kiss lots of boys/Or kiss lots of girls, if that’s what you’re into,” Ms. Musgraves sings.

Ms. Musgraves recalled the “Follow Your Arrow” co-write: “I had a few lines, ‘Make lots of noise, kiss lots of boys.’ I was like: ‘I wish I could just say: ‘Or kiss lots of girls.’ And Shane was like, ‘Why can’t you?’ I’m not sure that line would have happened if Shane wasn’t in the room.”

great feature

very nice, didn't know McAnally was gay.

still want to think more about the correlation between today's *audience* of country music, & the success of McAnally & the coterie of singers mentioned in the article---like, what is it about that audience that primes them to respond to these songs? maybe the answer is, nothing, duh, they're just good songs, nice melodies, good singing...but I think there's more than that to it. but it hasn't been the month for me to do that thinking alas.

love the "Blowin' Smoke" video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEsEUpk5rU8

Wow, that McAnally story read like a major piece. Clip and save.

I think the success of the songs he and slightly similar writers have come up with stems from something I think I mentioned upthread. Country music is still so formally conservative that it doesn't take much to stick out. At the same time, many of its fans are so attuned to its tropes that they've become really sensitive (in every sense) listeners, receptively picking out every witty turn of phrase and totally aware of the subtleties of each track's narrative. It's also a fan base pretty evenly divided between men and women, so the audience is by definition broad. Play by the rules as a writer and, ironically, you are accorded more freedom to flaut the rules, since once you've hooked a fan base they'll have your back forever.

right; I think in your last sentence you mean "rules" in two different senses, though. in the first instance you mean the "formal" rules: these are melodic & textural rules. then in the second instance, you mean the topical rules: what you can talk about. in the second sense though you can't flaunt things too much: the audience isn't gonna buy much in the way of say science fiction (Joe Diffie's "Third Rock from the Sun" pushes that about as far as you can go). You gotta write about things that are "real". but what's "real" for country's audience today is pretty broad! & as long you're writing hooks that meet the formal rules, you can stray pretty far from conservative orthodoxy...as long as you're staying within what's real for that audience. homosexuality is nowadays within its audience's real.

I loved that piece! Would jam with Scott.

Country music is still so formally conservative that it doesn't take much to stick out. At the same time, many of its fans are so attuned to its tropes that they've become really sensitive (in every sense) listeners, receptively picking out every witty turn of phrase and totally aware of the subtleties of each track's narrative. It's also a fan base pretty evenly divided between men and women, so the audience is by definition broad. Play by the rules as a writer and, ironically, you are accorded more freedom to flaut the rules, since once you've hooked a fan base they'll have your back forever.

This is how genre fiction works, too, you know. Mystery fans and airport-thriller fans and horror fans and sci-fi fans all know what they want, and the folks who play within the rules but tweak them in some small but vital way rocket to the top of the heap with astonishing speed.

Re Kacey Musgraves, I read that Times article this morning and checked for her on YouTube - the first performance I came across was "Merry Go Round," from a recent awards show, and I didn't like it much. But I'm listening to the album on Spotify now and it's pretty good. I don't totally love her voice, though - it's too crystal clear and pretty-girl chirpy for me, I wish it had more grit to it.

i think ultimately one of the album's greatest charms is the not-quite-right voice and the tension between it and the material. if she was a sassy big-voiced Gretchen Wilson type it'd be a whole other deal.

i think the voice fits in with sort of an i've-got-a-song-to-sing posture that clicks with the characterization of self and surroundings going on in the songs

euler otm about the real.

Really like Brandy Clark, the songs are just so well done. Lots of great little touches:

-leaving out the final refrain of "Divorce" is such a nice move, the song just hangs there as it fades out....
-love the organ and guitar swells in "Hungover", and the half chorus is another tasty choice...
-"Stripes": I'm a sucker for this sound, and dropping back to the minor chord on the final word, "stripes" in the chorus is just delicious....
-"He's some stranger's husband, and I'm some stranger's wife" is the heartbreakingest line I've heard in a long time....

Good stuff

She's doing a stadium tour now opening for Eric Church, Ely Young Band , and headliner Kenny Chesney. Chesney has brought her onstage on multiple gigs on the tour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxqtXt5SvUY

she don't sound so great in that video honestly but i dunno if she's built for stadium performance

she'll def never headline one, which i think makes tours like that kinda neat