It's hard to believe it's already been two years since Kacey Musgraves followed up Pageant Material with Golden Hour, bringing home multiple Album of the Year awards as well as a Grammy Award for Best Country Album. Fans have anxiously been waiting on new music from the country star and the time has finally come. In an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, the Texas native discusses her upcoming new album, star-crossed, and we honestly can't wait. She's been teasing its release on Instagram and TikTok with brief audio snippets and has even opened up about how her new songs will be getting personal following her divorce from fellow Nashville artist, Ruston Kelly.
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Musgraves tells Lowe that not only will her new album sound a bit more country than Golden Hour, it will also have more widespread influences, including Greek tragedies.
"I feel this record couldn't be more literal in some ways. But I also feel it's got this theatrical kind of almost fantasy take on- I wanted there to be that, just kind of that classical story," Musgraves said. "That classical vibe, kind of woven through all these other modern sounds....I feel like I'm tapping into more influences on this, widespread influences on this album. I don't know, there are some moments that kind of bring it back to that, where you can see kind of the relation to my previous music."
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The singer-songwriter admits that she's still currently holding onto star-crossed before the public finally gets to listen to her Golden Hour follow-up for the first time on its September 24 release date.
"I've been working on every single little detail and it's about to become everyone else's. I'm close to releasing it and I don't know if there's a letting go process sort of, because right now it is mine it's for me, and it's shielded from outside opinion, outside attached meaning, it's mine. You know what I mean? But now it's about to be -- I cherish it. It's mine. And then when you release it, I mean, it's crazy that it then lives on in all these other multidimensions with all these other people's relations, and thoughts, and opinions."
Though Musgraves describes her upcoming album as "a modern tragedy in three acts," she admits it took her a while to actually find a theme and title track. Fans should expect to see more emotional tracks compared to "Slow Burn" and other songs from her previous album. It also sounds like she's going to get a bit darker than just the classic "Romeo and Juliet" romantic tragedies.
"It ["star-crossed"] was the 14th song we wrote and actually funny that it's the first song that opens the album. I just really liked the definition. And I kind of came up with my own sort of too, because all the definitions that are out there are pretty antiquated from the old Bill Shakespeare days...You're ill-fated, it's just not written in the stars. It is not for you. And everyone puts out their highlight reel, nobody's putting out their f*ck ups.
"And that's one of the reasons why it's daunting. But I'm excited to share 'star-crossed' just because people know me to be a songwriter that writes about what I'm going through. And I think it would have been extremely awkward if I just acted this last chapter didn't happen for me. So I think you saw my highlight reel with Golden Hour and this is the other side of that. And I mean there are beautiful parts of that too."
