Music Evaluation: Kacey Musgraves’ ‘Deeper Properly’ trades country-pop hooks for deep, folk-y meditation
Simply over a decade in the past, Kacey Musgraves emerged as a recent new voice in nation music – a mid-tempo storyteller with an unbelievable acuity each in her lyrics and in her instrumentation, realizing simply when to select up the harmonica, whistle a tune or get away the vocoder.
Within the years and award-winning albums since, she’s confirmed herself to be malleable: weaving disco-pop into her narratives the place becoming (most memorably on “Excessive Horse” from 2018’s “Golden Hour,” the love-forward launch that earned her album of the yr on the 2019 Grammys ), recording in Spanish ( “Gracias a la Vida” from 2021’s divorce file, “star-crossed” ), and most lately, recording a function with Zach Bryan, which has develop into her first No. 1 hit (the sentimental “I Bear in mind Every thing,” one among AP’s picks for better of 2023.) In 2024, it has led to “Deeper Properly,” a muted folks file with a heat type of profundity.
The album opens with the ’60s folk-inspired “Cardinal,” the same tone to its nearer, “Nothing to be Scared Of” – acoustic guitars and Musgraves’ open-hearted narratives delivered by her glassy vocal supply. A lot of the album follows the format, however with fairly a couple of surprises.
These searching for capital-C nation by Musgraves’ matured folks filter may skip to “The Architect,” a masterful acoustic rumination on the next energy. “Typically I look within the mirror and want I may make a request/Might I pray it away? Am I shapeable clay? Or is that this nearly as good because it will get?,” she asks.
On “Anime Eyes,” Musgraves describes a “Miyazaki sky” and talk-sings her manner by a kaleidoscopic, psychedelic detour. “Lonely Millionaire” is a shocking near-reimagination of Atlanta rapper JID’s “Kody Blu 31.” Significantly: he acquired a songwriting credit score for the music, she doesn’t rap, and it is a weeper.
For followers following Musgraves’ profession for the reason that very starting, “Deeper Properly” is a famous evolution from “Comply with Your Arrow,” the celebratory country-as-heck LGBT+ anthem from her 2013 debut album “Identical Trailer Totally different Park.” However the spirit is identical: Musgraves has lengthy pushed the boundaries of her formative style – whether or not its touring with Willie Nelson and Katy Perry – or when she made certain her co-writers Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally took the stage when she gained the Nation Music Awards Tune of the 12 months Award in 2014 for her first hit; it was the primary time two overtly homosexual folks stood on the CMA stage for an award. That she chooses to maneuver her needle, right here, in a softer path feels becoming.
Typically, meaning hyper-specific language of the present second, like within the fingerpicking title observe “Deeper Properly.” “My Saturn has returned/after I turned 27,” she sings, referencing the favored astrological conceit that additionally seems on Ariana Grande’s newest album, “everlasting sunshine.” “Every thing began to alter/Took a very long time, however I realized.” There’s one other line, “You’ve obtained darkish power,” that feels extra like a textual content message than an efficient lyric — and runs the chance of relationship itself the second the listener hears it — however that, too, could possibly be a device. Right here, Musgraves is eager about a type of existential bloodletting, revealing the depths of her ideas about love and demise trickle out in gorgeous-sounding songs with candy melodies.
Like within the standout “Dinner with Mates,” her tear-jerkin’ response to “The Sound of Music” traditional “My Favourite Issues,” during which Musgraves, atop piano and acoustic guitar, sings about all the issues she loves — and can miss — “from the opposite facet” of life.
“My dwelling state of Texas/The sky there, the horses and canine,” she sings, “Intimate convos that go manner into the night time/The way in which that solar on my flooring makes a sample of sunshine.”
As a complete, “Deeper Properly” is a soft-pedaled album, but additionally one which celebrates her humanity. It is a good change of tempo — arguably the most effective type — one with some familiarity.
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