Kacey Musgraves - 2013 Anticipation

based on those song titles, it looks like it

plus the album title and title track, of course

Hot-take clickbait article pitch for whoever wants it: Kacey's album progression is broadly following Kanye's.

looking forward to her yeezus in 6 years then i guess

And her album with Jay-Z in 3

There's also a trailer that's very weird

https://us.umusic-online.com/5B4A-F6WK-396C0A-D3L2Y-1/c.aspx

― Indexed, Monday, August 23, 2021 12:33 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Someone who knows film help me with the influences here. The church and car scenes feel like Tarantino knock-offs, but much of the rest has some familiar vibes that I can't quite place.

Hmm, I dunno, seems pretty boilerplate longform music video kitsch to me.

https://www.target.com/p/kacey-musgraves-star-crossed-target-exclusive-vinyl/-/A-84044473

lol the insert or something that comes with this would be a much much better cover than the actual one

I had the same thought. The actual cover is truly terrible. Looks like the front of the vinyl is going to gatefold open though.

the golden hour cover is awful so maybe this is a good omen. i saw someone say this one looks like the cover of a slayter single

if she's gonna embrace camp this time around, i don't think the cover is that bad

i mean, it's not "good," but it's maybe fitting

wtf the golden hour cover is gorgeous

i like this too tho

Yah golden hour cover is pretty generic, just reminds me of stuff like early 00s Michelle Branch covers. I like the new one tho.

She's dating a bro-poet slash advertising guru.

my extremely positive feelings about the golden hour cover have only been magnified by looking at it during an acid trip

haha well then thats that

her first two albums had pretty striking covers, the golden hour one is just like a normal photo w/ plain font. her sister took the photo so i'm sure it had sentimental value to her. this one is more memorable if not exactly great. that target insert is >>>> i agree

First two woulda been better without the type.

went to the country music hall o fame/museum in nashville a few weeks back and like the full first floor was dedicated to her. her exhibit is bigger than anyone elses there. i figured it was just put together for the album push but apparently its been there for two years
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUz-iaBdcjI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cu8ZqHRB20

the golden hour cover is quite good, captures the feeling of the album really well

absolutely it does!

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/26/arts/music/kacey-musgraves-star-crossed.html

Love Kacey, don't really want a "pop" Kacey (whatever that is), and kind of found that whole piece insufferable.

Hess's prose here is a love-it-or-hate-it kind of thing. I can see why someone like Josh hates it, but I think it's appropriate to its subject. When you're writing about someone who spends a lot of her time standing next to a neon cactus, some camp is to be expected.

a vast kitchen island punctuated with a confusing number of lemons

a kind of yee-haw Mona Lisa

aligning your brand so expertly with consumption that you start dressing like an actual cupcake

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-0PaQanGBc

this is fine but i'm not really excited by it

I like it, I feel like it's a grower. Like I'll be happy for it to turn up in the middle of the album.

it's the sort of track that i'll probably enjoy more in context instead of as a single

I just watched the trailer anticipating something good, and I finished it sucking my teeth. hooooo boyyyyy….

idk i don't have any expectations either way about the film & if it ends up being bad it doesn't really matter

more craft than passion, the opposite of her other records, for me

i think "justified" is really rad, love how dynamic the arrangement is

production on "justified" is super messy, sounds terribly compressed

I want to say the last place she was booked to play here, before it got cancelled, was a mid-sized theatre. New upcoming winter 2022 tour has her playing an arena. Not what I was hoping for, and fwiw the Rolling Stone review of the new album makes me even less hopeful.

Or “Camera Roll,” which finds Musgraves channeling Jackson Browne

yoooooo

I don't even know what "channeling Jackson Browne" means, though in the case of Jackson Browne it generally means "makes me not want to listen to more than a few songs out of several decades of recorded output."

this is a weird album, unfortunately not a masterpiece like golden hour

there's some really good stuff but also lots of tracks that are just ok. despite the shift towards more pop-influenced textures there isn't anything close to a "high horse" attempt at a pop hit, and it's generally strongest when sticking to her roots. "if this was a movie" also has lovely ray of light-vibes, wish there was more of that

i like "justified" a lot -- i think there is a simplicity in the chorus lyrics in a way that hits extremely similar things to i.e. "happy & sad" that made me long for her bow-wrapped songs of yore but the melody actually stuck w/ me. i'm prepared to like this more than the reviews are indicating, tho i think she's prob bound to snap back a bit in terms of songwriting and i am looking forward to that. i've listened to golden hour several times recently and it's such a perfect lightning strike of an album that comparing anything else to it just seems kinda unfair

it's not a bad album at all but i very much understand why the reviews were generally a little underwhelmed

on my first listen -- love how "easier said" clearly takes influence from "The Lady in Red" by Chris de Burgh

First thought is I’m not liking the mix on this. Seems flat, especially the drums.

Hum yeah I’m just finishing listening to it and… it’s not very good unfortunately.
It lacks the things that she’s usually so good at : smart, witty, charming lyrics and great melodic hooks.
There’s not a line or a hook that has left a mark on me.
I’ll listen again and may change my mind but so far it feels like her weakest album.

wish there were more moments like the flute solo on "there is a light"

"simple times" is the worst track on the album, really stilted melodically & has all of this album's flaws in one place

I had high hopes for "there is a light" as it starts well and sounds lusher than the rest but it doesn't really take off and the arrangement may be a bit silly by the end (including the flute !).
But I don't remember exactly so I'll have to listen to it again since it seems like the most ambitious track of the album.
The rest all seem to end before doing anything (and usually I'm all for short tracks !).
For instance "cherry blossom" is the same melody/lines "cherry blossom/tokyo" round and round without the melody being strong enough to carry it... during 2min.

yeah the songwriting is just never anywhere near as strong as her previous work, either melodically or lyrically

I haven't given it a listen yet, but I suspect this is another example of a what can happen when a breakthrough record suddenly earns someone a big new audience but also expectations that never really existed before. I kind if wish it was released without all the hoopla newfound attention brings, too. They're playing up the press-release "a story in three-acts" thing big-time, which is bad enough, but also it kind of irks me (just on a personal level) that this is being marketed as a divorce album specifically and not just another breakup album. Not only was she married for just two years, I honestly didn't even know she *was* married. And the end of a two-year marriage with no kids just seems ... I don't know, kind of small potatoes in the grand scheme of the last few years. Or maybe the likes of Laird and McAnally are just better at getting good stuff out of her than the new team?

Listening to both albums this morning, I wondered what Musgraves might've done with the new Low songs and vice versa.

xp it does really lean into the divorce angle a few times lyrically so i understand that marketing angle. the three-act thing is even on the back cover but it's pretty loose in actuality

i don't think it's that the songwriting team is any worse than before - it's the same team that co-wrote most of golden hour & produced all of it, but they've pushed even further outside their country comfort zone this time with more awkward results. most of the songs feel like solid starting points that could have been fleshed out further into something great, but just weren't.

This is much better than I expected. Reminds me conceptually, but also certain places musically, of Ray of Light.

btw I'm not a Musgraves fan other than of the debut I rarely play, and I'm not hearing much difference between the wan tunefulness of Golden Hour and this one.