Kacey Musgraves – “star-crossed”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 sang 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.

Listen to the title track below.

There will also be a film to accompany the album, directed by Bardia Zenali. The film features cameos from Eugene Levy, Princess Nokia, RuPaul’s Drag Race‘s Symone, Victoria Pedretti, and Megan Stalter. It will debut on Paramount+ on the same day the album is released. Here’s the trailer:

Musgraves talked about the album again in an interview with Apple Music. “I feel this record couldn’t be more literal in some ways. But I also feel it’s got this theatrical kind of almost fantasy take on … I wanted there to be that, just kind of that classical story. That classical vibe, kind of woven through all these other modern sounds. I always love when something classic or something traditional, something futuristic kind of meet.”

TRACKLIST:
01 “star-crossed”
02 “good wife”
03 “cherry blossom”
04 “simple times”
05 “if this was a movie…”
06 “justified”
07 “angel”
08 “breadwinner”
09 “camera roll”
10 “easier said”
11 “hookup scene”
12 “keep lookin’ up”
13 “what doesn’t kill me”
14 “there is a light”
15 “gracias a la vida” (Violeta Parra Cover)

star-crossed is out 9/10. Pre-order it here.