Star-Crossed (studio album) by Kacey Musgraves

From Schribes 07/16/2023 13:52

This isn’t really my cup of tea. But I do enjoy listening to this album. Sometimes I need something mellow and easy to listen to. She’s a great story teller and lyricist and that’s what you get here. Sometimes you get stuck on an artist and it doesn’t matter what they do….you just enjoy their music. Besides my wife and daughter really like her. I think I’ll listen to a little Judas Priest now…Lol.

I really want to like this.

Musgraves is very similar to Nanci Griffith. Both were folk singer-songwriters (from Texas) at their core. They failed commercially to make it into the country market but once they embraced pop on the MCA label, they garnered a steady and appreciative fanbase.

This album is sincerely a mess.

I love the attempts at the gaudy and expansive production, but it ends up scattered and distracting the listener from the artist, who should be front and center.

The material is missing an emotional connection, an element that sounds familiar enough to a listener that they want more. On Star-Crossed, there is no emotional connection to melody or lyric.

On her next record, Musgraves needs a strong organic ensemble to back her up. She needs a producer to add light touches to her natural talent. She needs to collaborate with musicians that compliment her style and spirit.

I hope to get a record like that within a few years and Musgraves can do it.

Not recommended.

A Side: Justified
B Side: Angel

From corenfro 09/15/2021 02:34

It's not the lightning in a bottle that the first half of Golden Hour was but she's still a really nice songwriter w/ a winning pop country sounding voice. It's pretty solidly pop here genre-wise pulling bits and pieces from other genres when it's needed: weird vocal effects and autotune, some electronica-inspired synths, samples & beats here and there, but it's typical pop structures w/ a really reverb heavy psychedelic feeling we're used to hearing from Kacey at this point.

Clearly a high budget production value as she used the same production team from her last few albums. Clearly an experienced mixing team & nice sounding mixes.

Some corny lyrics, and certain tracks in the middle of the album feel pretty cliché or unoriginal. This doesn't strike me personally as a dramatic shift in artistic direction for here or like it's particularly making any sort of statement. I think these are honest songs from Kacey detailing an unfortunate antithesis: the ending of the (presumably same?) relationship she blissfully described on Golden Hour in her divorce with Ruston Kelly. In fact, the worst thing about this in fact it's almost invalidating to her best tracks "Slow Burn" "Oh, What A World" or perhaps it's relieving that it's validation those sentiments and emotions expressed in those songs are at best fleeting and temporary.