Kacey Musgraves: Middle of Nowhere Album Review
At her mainstage Coachella efficiency in 2019, Kacey Musgraves led the viewers in a chant between songs: “When I say YEE, you say HAW.” When she stayed silent for a beat and the gang shouted “HAW” anyway, she chided them: “I didn’t say fuckin’ yee.” There’s a lesson right here, which is that Kacey Musgraves works on her personal time, regardless of our expectations or calls for. And along with her new album, Middle of Nowhereshe has determined to trip in on her high horse and settle again into some down-the-middle nation. Folks, she’s lastly mentioned fuckin’ yee.
To describe Middle of Nowhere With a country cliché, Musgraves goes again to his roots. Our introduction was the one “Dry Spell,“a sultry, funny, and pristinely constructed song about not having had sex in 335 days. “Lonely with a capital H, if you know what I mean,” Musgraves coos, “I’ve been sitting on the washing machine.” This isn’t the Kacey of 2024’s Deeper Well, omm-ing her way through pain, blaming any errant troubles on the astrological climate. Middle of Nowhere‘s Kacey is witty, a bit sarcastic, alternately ecstatic and frustrated but always ready to entertain.
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Her 2018 masterpiece, Golden Hourswerved gracefully between country and pop. Middle of Nowhereon the other hand, is an expansive but focused survey of the past 50-plus years of country music and its various subgenres, with a particular emphasis on her Texas heritage. Musgraves tapped longtime collaborators like Josh Osborne, Luke Laird, and Shane McAnally (the latter two co-wrote her Grammy-winning song “Space Cowboy”) to put in writing her most classically nation tunes since 2015’s Pageant Material: There are four different pedal steel players credited on Middle of Nowhereand they all get a workout on this album.
Musgraves sounds assured and comfy. “Back on the Wagon” is a Garth Brooks-style yarn about loving a loser who’s positively, completely getting his shit collectively this time, whose refrain rhymes “wagon” (he is again on it) with “drag him” (do not do it). “Abilene,” a couple of girl who blows off the titular metropolis for greener pastures, is a religious sequel to 2013’s “Blowin’ Smoke“, which depicted a gaggle of small-town waitresses who imagined better lives but never made any changes. And “Everybody Wants to Be a Cowboy” could be read as a dismissal of superficial converts to the agrarian aesthetic (“I bet most of these boots are probably never seeing any dirt/And the ground ain’t any softer if you’re wearing a rhinestone shirt,” Musgraves scoffs), but it ends up being a lament for the kind of people who seek freedom but can’t handle commitment.
It’s a feature-heavy album: “Everybody Wants to Be a Cowboy” will get an help from bluegrass phenom Billy Stringsand Miranda Lambert joins the occasion for a ribald, norteño-infused waltz referred to as “Horses and Divorces.” The two Texans look like burying the hatchet after years of rumored disagreement, which apparently started when Lambert poached the Musgraves-written “Mama’s Broken Heart.” On “Horses and Divorces,” the 2 wave away their feud as “whiskey under the bridge” and discover some widespread floor: They each preserve livestock, they’ve each had marriages ended, and, merely, “We both like to drink.” And they each love Willie Nelsonof course—“What asshole doesn’t like Willie?” they warble collectively like they’re sharing a mic at a Nashville karaoke bar.
