FEATURE:
Vinyl Corner
Kacey Musgraves – Golden Hour
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PHOTO CREDIT: Eric T. White for Spin
Vinyl Corner, I wanted to revisit an album that was released in 2018 and, to me, it stands as one of the best albums of the past decade. Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour is an album you need on vinyl, as it is full of brilliant music. Her second album, 2015’s Pageant Material, was celebrated by critics, but some felt that the album was a bit soft and didn’t have much energy or diversity in terms of its mood. Forward a few years, and Golden Hour incorporated the best elements of Pageant Material – consistently brilliant songwriting and incredible performances from Musgraves -, and it added in new layers. Her fourth studio album was released through MCA Nashville. Musgraves co-wrote all thirteen tracks and co-produced the album with Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk. I am not surprised that Golden Hour won four Grammys – including Album of the Year. One does not have to be a fan of Country/County-Pop music to appreciate Golden Hour and enjoy the songs. It is that unification of more traditional Country tones and themes mixed with a more widespread and polished Pop sound that makes Golden Hour such a fantastic album, able to appeal to everyone but, when you listen to it, it is very much the work of Kacey Musgraves – in that it sounds very personal top her and you can tell how committed she is throughout the album.
Singles such as Butterflies, Space Cowboy, and High Horse are phenomenal, and I wasn’t overly-aware of Musgraves prior to Golden Hour, but I have gone back and listened to her albums since. She has grown and evolved between every album, and Golden Hour is a brilliant peak. It makes me wonder where her fifth album might take her, as she is a terrific songwriter and someone who will only grow stronger! One of the bigger shifts from Pageant Material to Golden Hour was the inclusion of more love songs. Musgraves said how she never usually wrote love songs and felt connected to them before. Not that she was unhappy but, perhaps, the relationships she was in at various points of her career didn’t feel that real or long-lasting. When writing the songs on Golden Hour, Musgraves was married (she married Ruston Kelly in 2017; they sadly divorced last month), and it was easier to write about the throes of love and that depth of feeling. The fact that, sadly, she is not married anymore takes nothing away from Golden Hour and how you experience the songs. Oddly, for a Pop/Country artist, LSD played a small part in some songs’ creation; when writing Mother, and Slow Burn, that lysergic influence was very helpful – not that Musgraves was condoning the use of LSD, as it can have quite a negative effect on the mind.
I look back at the albums of 2018, and it was a big and impactful year for female artists. Terrific albums from Courtney Barnett, Mitski, Janelle Monáe, Cardi B, Ariana Grande, Let’s Eat Grandma, and Rosalía made 2018 such a strong and vibrant year. Not that male artists were lacking, but it was a year when women were ruling and producing the best albums around! I think Golden Hour is among the finest albums of that year and, as I said, one of the best albums from the 2010s. The reviews for Golden Hour were glistening and glowing. This is what AllMusic wrote in their assessment:
“Golden Hour shimmers with the vivid colors that arrive when the sun starts to set, when familiar scenes achieve a sense of hyperreality. Such heightened emotions are a new aesthetic for Kacey Musgraves, who previously enlivened traditional country with her sly synthesis of old sounds and witty progressive lyrics. Musgraves barely winks on Golden Hour, disguising her newfound emotional candidness behind a gorgeous veneer of harmonies and synthesizers. Sonically, the album doesn't scan country. Whenever Musgraves makes an explicit nod to the past, she acknowledges the smooth grooves of yacht rock and the glitterball pulse of disco, styles that only have a tangential relationship with country but feel more welcome in a landscape where R&B and hip-hop are embraced by some of the biggest stars in country. Musgraves doesn't mine this vein, preferring a soft, blissed-out vibe to skittering rhythms and fleet rhymes.
At their core, the songs on Golden Hour – which Musgraves largely co-wrote with her co-producers Ian Fitchuk and Daniel Tashian, but also featuring Natalie Hemby, Luke Laird, and Shane McAnally, among other collaborators – don’t play with form: they are classic country constructions, simply given productions that ignore country conventions from either the present or the past. This is a fearless move, but Golden Hour is hardly confrontational. It’s quietly confident, unfurling at its own leisurely gait, swaying between casual confessions and songs about faded love. The very sound of Golden Hour is seductive – it’s warm and enveloping, pitched halfway between heartbreak and healing – but the album lingers in the mind because the songs are so sharp, buttressed by long, loping melodies and Musgraves’ affectless soul-baring. Previously, her cleverness was her strong suit, but on Golden Hour she benefits from being direct, especially since this frankness anchors an album that sounds sweetly blissful, turning this record into the best kind of comfort: it soothes but is also a source of sustenance”.
I am still listening to tracks from Golden Hour and, whilst one wouldn’t want to rush Kacey Musgraves into another album – I have written about expectations artists face and why there is too much pressure on their shoulders -, but Golden Hour was so great, there are going to be many people out there wondering where she will go next in terms of inspiration.
I want to bring in another review of Golden Hour before wrapping things up here. When they tackled the album, this is what The Guardian offered:
“The success of High Horse is indicative of the ease and confidence that courses through Golden Hour. Regardless of genre, you’ll be hard pushed to find a better collection of pop songs this year. Everything clicks perfectly, but the writing has an effortless air; it never sounds as if it’s trying too hard to make a commercial impact, it never cloys, and the influences never swallow the character of the artist who made it. In recent years, there have been plenty of artists who’ve clumsily tried to graft the sound of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours on to their own. On Lonely Weekend, possibly the best track here, Musgraves succeeds in capturing some of that album’s dreamy atmosphere without giving the impression that she’s striving to sound like Fleetwood Mac. It’s an album that imagines a world in which its author is the mainstream, rather than an influential outlier. It says something about its quality that, by the time it’s finished, that doesn’t seem a fanciful notion at all”.
If you are not familiar with Kacey Musgraves, I would say begin at the start and check out her incredible 2013 debut, Same Trailer Different Park. You can see her grow between albums, and each album offers an insight into her life and story. I think Golden Hour is her most assured and uplifting album, and one cannot deny that Musgraves sounds happy and settled through much of the record. It is a truly remarkable album, and it is one that I would easily…
RECOMMEND to anyone.