Kacey Musgraves – star-crossed

Kacey Musgraves has been talking up her follow-up to 2018’s Golden Hour since the beginning of the year. In February, she said that it would deal with her divorce from fellow country singer Ruston Kelly and that it had a three-act narrative and was inspired by Shakespeare and a mushroom trip. In May, she was back to list off some of the album’s sonic reference points: Bill Withers, Daft Punk, Sade, the Eagles, Weezer. A couple weeks ago, she scndsdang a bit of two songs on a podcast and over the weekend, on her 33rd birthday, she finally started to preview new music from it.
Today, she’s officially announcing her new album, star-crossed. It will be out quite soon (9/10) and she’s introducing it with the title track, which opens the album and (as she sings) sets the scene: “Two lovers ripped right at the seams/ They woke up from the perfect dream/ And then the darkness came.” There’s rippling harp and a Latin-tinged guitar and it builds up into a pulsating dance-y breakdown.