Kacey Musgraves - 2013 Anticipation

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.

there are songs that are pretty melodically reminiscent of golden hour, like "cherry blossom" and "if this was a movie", but golden hour really lets its songs breathe, while as aixtc said, the tracks on this one largely end before doing anything. like, "cherry blossom" could surely use a bridge to elevate it etc. instead of just looping the chorus for two minutes

To me, her previous work had such strong songwriting displaying her gift for great melodies and hooks (for instance "Butterflies" is marvelous) that this one is disappointing.
It's not bad but, yeah, the melodies don't... blossom !

“good wife” is sophistipop

enticement or incitement?

waiting to get my copy later today but twitter is not making me excited about playing it:

a lot of this kacey album sounds like the soundtrack to a 2001 jennifer aniston vehicle

— Natalie Weiner (@natalieweiner) September 10, 2021

new kacey album is not good. it’s not solar power level bad but uh nah

— metaltxt (@metaltxt) September 10, 2021

these ppl are full of shit

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

also bizarre to me, great song tastefully arranged

Nothing really works in this album, and certainly not the Jethro Tull moment, it kinda hurts.
On the side of exceptions I have Simple Times, Justified and Keep lookin' up.

do y’all not love “easier said”??????

i’m not sure how i feel about this as an album sequence yet but if anything i think her melodic sensibility is more finely tuned than ever

“camera roll” is also devastating

amazing that the ppl trashing this record mention nothing from the second half at all

flute solo goes, turn the beat around

“good wife” is sophistipop

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Friday, September 10, 2021 8:29 AM (thirty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is a sophistipop album

Need to listen to this a few more times but agree with Brad about the second half and he didn't even mention "hookup scene"

I agree about the second half.

(pronouns are they/she btw, working on the latter half of that) xp

god "hookup scene" is so good

Apologies and noted!

Seems like some of the criticism I've read has focused on the lyrics being too plain, lacking in the witty double-entendres and playful cliches she's deployed across her work. The cosmic, sunbathed, iridescent sound of Golden Hour was also innovative and fresh and felt like a new space for both pop and country...I don't think this is different in kind but clearly "radiance" was not what they were going for on her divorce record.

Personally, while I truly adore those first three records, I found the cute cliches were wearing thin with writers like Musgraves, Luke Laird, Shane McAnally, and Brandy Clark leaning into them too often. I like how writers like Emily Scott Robinson and Katie Pruitt are writing searing personal stories with plain spoken words from distinct POVs and was hoping to hear more Kacey in this record. Going to have to give it another spin but the melodies seemed perfectly strong to me...

I'm not a fan, but thought I'd listen in light of these comments. I agree with those saying the songs feel more like sketches or almost-songs that could have used fleshing-out.

(The lyrics are also awful, IMO, and she is not a good singer)

this album rules, brad otm. 'there is a light' is balearic af, her audience doesn't deserve her

nb my only previous exp with kacey musgraves is enjoying slow burn and high horse and not getting into the rest of the album

“good wife” is sophistipop

specifically it really reminds me of the last natalie prass album and i wish the album as a whole pushed more in that direction. i am a big fan of the sophisti-pop & balearic touches across the album just wish they were stronger if anything

the first 4 songs leave me pretty cold but this really kicks into gear right around "justified". "breadwinner" in particular is awesome -- it's really the inverse of "high horse" in that she's on her's but also bcuz the production feels organic and detailed as opposed to sounding like she opened up a 99 cent can of something labeled "disco." from "camera roll" on i think the songs start to map along the contours of her past music in a way that feels familiar and comfortable. "easier said" and "hookup scene" have an ease of motion between sections that feels trademark her even if the arrangements and lyrics are going somewhere new, a bit more broad.

that initial section it feels like they're spinning their wheels in terms of the production but as the album goes on it does take on a distinct form that is different from golden hour imo, it's more layered, a bit knottier, but also i think they got better at what they're trying to do in several places. "breadwinner" and "there is a light" (practically a todd terje song!) stand out as tracks that actually make golden hour feel like a prelude to something richer, which i didn't think was going to be possible going into this album.