Country music’s MAGA-coded dry spell finally snapped last week with the release of eight-time Grammy winner Kacey Musgraves’ sixth studio album, “Middle of Nowhere.”
An outspoken progressive with little patience for her genre’s reactionary figureheads, Musgraves schooled her contemporaries on what it actually means to be “Choosin’ Texas,” while beautifully capturing the state’s Mexican heritage and embracing her newfound solitude.
One of the greatest accomplishments — and most lamentable tragedies — of Musgraves’ career is the perpetual use of her 2018 album “Golden Hour” as the singular benchmark for all her subsequent work. Notably, the country-pop masterpiece won the following year’s Grammy for Album of the Year.
Some critics have heralded “Middle of Nowhere” as a return to that earlier success, but this framing undersells the strength of her more recent work, including the folk-leaning 2024 album “Deeper Well,” which will always hold a special place in my heart.
Coming two years later, her latest album’s title originates from a sign in the singer-songwriter’s 300-person hometown reading, “Golden, Texas: Somewhere in the middle of nowhere.”
The metaphor captures the album’s goals through both specificity and universality, grounded in the distinctive pride of East Texas but inviting listeners to locate themselves in their personal versions of the “Middle of Nowhere.”
The title track provides the album’s mission statement, with Musgraves announcing that she is “trying to lean into the in between,” reflecting the crossroads she finds herself at both romantically and geographically.
The album’s lead single, “Dry Spell,” is packed with innuendos that humorously track Musgraves’ uneventful sex life. It similarly sets the tone for the record, supported by her trademark self-aware lyricism.
“Back on the Wagon” is an anthem for anyone convinced they can change a man who continually disappoints, dovetailing nicely with the album’s parting message. “I Believe In Ghosts” is a biting, Fleetwood Mac-inspired track that laments ghosting, with Musgraves singing, “’Cause you didn’t even have the balls / To tell me goodbye / And look me in the eye.”
The latter is easily one of the album’s best tracks, driven by an absolutely haunting guitar solo.
“Everybody Wants to Be a Cowboy,” featuring Billy Strings, is a direct rebuttal to the cultural ascendency of Western aesthetics. From personal experience, it’s the perfect song to send to your friend from Boston who just bought her first pair of Tecovas.
Musgraves has spoken extensively about the Mexican influences on the album’s soundscape, and that borderlands inspiration is most prominent on “Horses and Divorces,” featuring Miranda Lambert, and “Uncertain, TX,” with Willie Nelson.
The former represents a tongue-in-cheek resolution to their longstanding feud, prompting some listeners to dub the track “cow-‘Girl, so confusing,’” a nod to Charli XCX’s 2024 reparative collaboration with Lorde.
While some might accuse Musgraves’ album of cultural appropriation, I think she clearly recognizes country’s indebtedness to Mexican musical traditions. As such, she spotlighted the mariachi-singing Gámez-Cuéllar brothers, a trio of teenagers detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement earlier this year, during recent performances at Texas’s oldest continuously-operated dance hall.
If the legacy of “Golden Hour” appears anywhere on Musgraves’s newest project, it’s on “Rhinestoned,” a dreamy song about the benefits of getting stoned with someone you love — rhinestoned, of course.
The following track, “Mexico Honey,” opens with a rapid verse about the singer’s blossoming romance, and the chorus is sweetened by Musgraves’ disbelief at her newfound attraction. “I want you so bad, it ain’t even funny,” she sings. “I mean, for real, what the hell?”
But the album concludes with the stripped-down “Hell on Me,” which details Musgraves losing her “light in someone else’s dark.” This song captures the satisfaction of coming to terms with independence, turning that realization into something worth celebrating.
This overarching theme is perhaps best encapsulated by my favorite track, “Loneliest Girl.” Throughout the song, Musgraves embraces this title, reminding listeners that if you’re “just doing it for company,” you’re better off being “the loneliest girl in the world.”
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