KACEY MUSGRAVES Star-Crossed | An immersive narrative of the stages of her divorce
Kacey Musgraves is an American Country artist who goes far beyond the genre that gave her birth. After an overwhelming success with her previous album ‘Golden Hour‘, dedicated to her marriage, now with ‘Star-Crossed‘ she tells us about her divorce as a Greek tragedy.
Reading Time | 3 min
Listening Time | 10 min
Kacey Musgraves Star-Crossed
The first song on the album is called ‘Star-Crossed‘. It is the only track in which Kacey Musgraves plays the narrator role, being the protagonist in first person in the rest of the album, but Kacey wanted to begin her chronicle of what she describes as a modern tragedy by explaining this to us:
Let me set the scene
Two lovers ripped right at the seams,
they woke up from the perfect dream,
and then the darkness came
And the next thing she says is that she’s signed the divorce papers.
What may sound like any other story, is her own. Kacey Musgraves, after 2 and a half years of marriage to Ruston Kelly, separates from him, and tells us about it in 3 acts, like the good Greek tragedies she has been inspired by: grief, acceptance and healing. All that is on ‘Star-Crossed‘, an intimate and captivating album 💔
Kacey Musgrave has been telling us about her life in songs since she released her first album ‘Same Trailer Different Park‘ in 2013, until her 4th album, ‘Golden Hour‘ in 2018, which brought her spectacular success and where she told us about the joy of finding a person and wishing to marry them.
But time goes by, life takes many turns and in 2021, in less than 3 weeks, Kacey records her new album, told as a classic story, like Romeo and Juliet, and she does it using the Spanish guitar, to give it an even more evocative tone.
Don’t think of it as a rebound album, far from it. The album reflects on all the good that her relationship has brought her and how it opens up a new path in her life.
What we like most is that Kacey achieves a retro and futuristic style at the same time, as in the track ‘Good Wife’, the best song on the album, where she whispers: “let’s go back to the beginning“.
Find out more amazing new music with lost of insights 🧡
“Good Wife” is like a perfect cinematic opener for the album. In it Kacey reveals how difficult it was for her to be a good wife, for all that it entails.
Imagine what the process would be like for her when she bought a second-hand bed and planted it in the middle of the recording studio. Kacey explained why:
I just wanted something pretty to look at while being stuck in a dark studio for weeks. But, it soon became the physical and visual center of my recording universe. Somewhere to mourn but forge ahead.
Kacey Musgraves in the studio (Facebook Image)
Musically speaking, Star-Crossed is a pop album that incorporates folk, country and psychedelic elements.
- It is underpinned by soft ballads, analog synthesizers and well-crafted harmonies.
Along with the album Kacey Musgraves has released a film featuring her music called Star-Crossed: The Film‘ 🎥
Star-Crossed is an essential album, raw, honest, direct and intimate, in which Kacey sings in a minimalist and dreamy way, showing a vulnerability that hypnotizes you and makes you keep listening to the album until its last track, “Gracias a la vida (Thanks to life)“.
Yes, she sings it in Spanish, paying homage to the famous song by Chilean Violeta Parra, although the version Kacey first heard was by argentinian Mercedes Sosa.
- ‘Gracias a la vida‘ is an ode to both the beauty and the pain we experience in this life and the deep gratitude for the chance to be alive to experience it all.
Kacey Musgraves already moved us with her Christmas song alongside Troye Sivan, ‘Glittery‘. Now, with ‘Star-Crossed’ she has finally convinced us and even more seeing how boldness her live performances are, like the recent one on Saturday Night Live, where she sang another great song, ‘Justified‘. Yes, she’s naked, doesn’t it remind you of a famous scene from Forrest Gump? 🏃🏻
