“Do we really have to grow up?” Kacey Musgraves asked on 2015’s Pageant Material, the last time the singer-songwriter was staring down impossible expectations. Back then she was figuring out where to go next after her standard-setting 2013 debut Same Trailer Different Park, which established the blueprint for daring millennial country storytelling.
On 2018’s Golden Hour Musgraves proved just how effortlessly an artist can mature and have fun at the same time. Golden Hour was a Grammy-winning rodeo-zen opus that set her witty wordplay to a blissed-out blend of banjos and vocoder, cementing the Texas traditionalist as a sui generis auteur as well as an avatar for the sonic and cultural boundary-crossing possibilities of contemporary country.
Thanks to that album’s artistic, commercial and critical success, Musgraves is once again facing outsized pressure. So she’s returned to her Peter Pan question from 2015, and she doesn’t like the answer one bit: “Being grown up kind of sucks,” she sings on “Simple Times,” the most infectious and convincing song on Star-Crossed, her consistently compelling, admirably idiosyncratic yet mildly disappointing latest album. The record nudges the galactic disco-cowboy country-pop of Golden Hour a bit further. Her first collection with zero Nashville co-writers not named Ian Fitchuk or Daniel Tashian barely has any banjo; It does, however, have loads of expensive-sounding synths, a bonkers flute solo and a Spanish-language cover of a song by Chilean folk legend Violeta Parra.
Musgraves uses a loose Romeo and Juliet premise to tell one of the oldest stories in country music: the tale of her divorce from fellow singer-songwriter Ruston Kelly, who’d inspired Golden Hour. Several songs cycle through the many stages of post break-up grief. There’s “Breadwinner,” a “High Horse”-reminiscent disco-ball Dolly send-up that contains an entire break-up album worth of venom. Or “Camera Roll,” which finds Musgraves channeling Jackson Browne, looking through some photographs she found inside her phone.
Just like the stick-on tears and handkerchief merch being sold to accompany the album’s rollout, it’s hard to shake the feeling throughout Star-Crossed that Musgraves feels as though she was supposed to make a heart-wrenching divorce record. Thankfully, she’s smarter than that and the best moments here put her own personalized spin on the well-worn cliches of the standard big-budget post-break-up purge-fest.
The dramatic title-track introduction and heart-split-in-half album cover are clever misdirections on a record that’s most moving when it’s not forcing any heart-on-the-page catharsis and instead leaning on what Musgraves has always done best: documenting the terrifying, numbing messiness of mixed emotions. Take the chorus of “Justified”: “If I cry just a little/And then laugh in the middle/If I hate you/Then I love you/Then I change my mind.” Or “Cherry Blossom,” a cautious reflection on falling in love after knowing it didn’t work out.
Most heartbreaking is the alienating disconnection that defines so much of Star-Crossed: Musgraves drapes her detachment in Nintendo nostalgia and Super Mario kitsch on “Simple Times,” which compares adulthood to a video-game simulation. By the next track, “If This Was a Movie..,” she’s pondering how her relationship might’ve turned out if it had been in the hands of Hollywood. By the time Musgraves reaches the third act, she’s moved on with a shrugging gratitude that recalls a line she sang on her first album: “It is what it is/’Till it ain’t anymore.” Her hard-won existential realism feels like a victory. Now, on to the next chapter.
ALBUM REVIEWS
Grandeur sits at the heart of ‘This Music May Contain Hope’, RAYE’s second album, and the result feels nothing short of breathtaking. On this record, the singer born Rachel Keen explores a wide spectrum of sounds across its 73 minute length, moving from emotional ballads to lively funk moments and the jazz pop style she has become closely associated with. It can feel overwhelming at first, yet the magic that comes from RAYE fully committing to her vision makes the experience rewarding from start to finish.
‘This Music May Contain Hope’, a conceptual project about pushing through insecurity and heartbreak, unfolds like a lavish stage production. RAYE takes on the dual role of main character and guiding voice throughout the story. “Allow me to set the scene. Our story begins at 2:27am on a rainy night in Paris. Cue the thunder,” she says during the opening track ‘Girl Under The Grey Cloud’, which arrives with sweeping orchestral strings. Spoken passages appear across the album, helping shape the narrative and giving the project a sense of direction, almost like hearing the official recording of a Broadway show.
With this framework in place, the South London artist allows herself to fully explore the album’s diverse musical palette, and most of the time it works in her favor. Sometimes she fully embraces the theatrical side of the concept, especially during the closing section of the smooth R&B track ‘The WhatsApp Shakespeare’. Other moments are delivered more straightforwardly, such as the emotional slow building ballad ‘I Know You’re Hurting’. She also revisits her earlier dance influences with the impressive house track ‘Life Boat’.
Across the entire album, two things stand out clearly. RAYE’s flexible vocals sound better than ever, and her songwriting feels sharper than it has before. Take the playful highlight ‘I Hate The Way I Look Today’, a swing jazz inspired track reminiscent of Ella Fitzgerald, where she admits “I’m okay to be lonely / If I’m lonely and skinny / I have such silly self-loathing thoughts, it seems”. Then there is the emotional storytelling in ‘Nightingale Lane’: “It was right there, early June / Next to Old Park Avenue / Standing in the rain, I watched him walk away”.
Despite all the vulnerability and emotional struggles explored throughout the record, RAYE ultimately reaches a place of optimism, staying true to the album’s title. She gathers her close friends on ‘Click Clack Symphony’ with support from Hans Zimmer, finds closure with guidance from Al Green on the smooth seventies soul inspired ‘Goodbye Henry’, and reaches toward something greater alongside her sisters Amma and Absolutely on the uplifting ‘Joy’ as she searches to be “free of all the pain and every fear”. After the stormy opening imagery of that “rainy night” and “thunder”, RAYE eventually realizes that “the sun exists behind the clouds”, as she shares on ‘Happier Times Ahead’.
‘This Music May Contain Hope’ shows RAYE performing at her absolute peak. The album feels huge in scale and emotionally powerful, yet it remains rooted in honest experiences and real feelings. Yes, it asks a lot from the listener, but that is also what makes it so special. Every dramatic moment and musical shift feels like RAYE claiming her independence and finally creating music entirely on her own terms.
