Pageant Material
by Kacey Musgraves

From samistake2ice 06/25/2015 20:47 | #144586 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Is Kacey Musgraves a step in the right direction for country music radio? Sure. However, I'm not sure that's a high bar to clear. I see the appeal of the album, but I'm not sure it's obviously better than Miranda Lambert.

For the genre it's a great achievement, and even more impressive that it's a follow up to a critically acclaimed debut, but the music is still "teenage girl" country. No doubt that it has its place, but it's not appealing to me. Especially while there are women the same age (Lydia Loveless, Nikki Lane, Caitlin Rose, Lera Lynn, etc) who write and sing songs with greater substantial feeling and depth.

I don't mean to belittle what I think is a good album, but I would encourage those of you who like it to seek out the music from the artists I mentioned above and others (I'd be thrilled to give you some recs of my favorites). Then you can see how female-country's controversy meter doesn't peak at pot smoking and girl-on-girl kissing.

From zdwyatt TOP 100 COMMENTER 09/04/2015 16:00 | #149231 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Her musical sensibility is impeccable and she turns out great melodies. This album just sounds amazing. Lyrically, there's a playfulness to her songs that hearkens to 60/70s female country artists. She does fall back on clever phrases a bit too often, but her lyrics have matured overall. Give her a few more years and another couple of albums and she'll be unstoppable.

From zags7000 06/30/2015 05:43 | #144841 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

I highly doubt you will find a better country album this year and one of the best this decade. It certainly cements her place alongside Miranda as the best in country music.

Great follow-up. She's the best Country Pop artist of the decade imo.

As good as it is, there's no shaking the feeling that the lioness has tamed herself somewhat. Or perhaps just a release working on strengthing her songwriting skill and seeing what she's capable of, as artistically it seems a bit like a holding pattern rather than the next leap forward from STDP. Her progessive, common-sense wisdom still shines, though she does seem to rely a bit more on cliques than ever before ("you can take the girl from the country, but can't take the country from the girl"), but when she does find moments of inspiration, especially on "Biscuits" and the title track, it really is spectacular. Musgraves certainly seems destined for great things, and simply making a very good follow-up to an eye-popping debut like Same Trailer will more than do for now, and certainly holds promise for what (hopefully) will be a from-the-gut next chapter.