Kacey Musgraves sets the musical and narrative tone for her new album, Middle of Nowhere, with its opening song and title track, which is out now.
Atop sunlit acoustic strums and a low-end thump, Musgraves calmly declares, “it’s just me and me and that’s all I need.” It’s both a mission statement and, as the record unfolds, a thesis she keeps testing. Because even in the wide-open emotional space she’s carved out, desire — and contradiction — creep in quickly.
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“The thing that I love about the place that I’m in / There’s no reckless men / Who don’t know what they want,” she sings later. Middle of Nowhere is out May 1 from Lost Highway and is the follow-up to 2024’s Deeper Well. Guests include Willie Nelson on “Uncertain, Texas,” Miranda Lambert on “Horses and Divorces,” Billy Strings on “Everybody Wants To Be a Cowboy” and Gregory Alan Isakov on “Coyote.”
“Creatively, I felt compelled to purposefully lean hard into western tropes and elements that I grew up on,” Musgraves says. “I knew I wanted simple and nostalgic framework with traditional elements.”
Musgraves will begin promoting the album with a surprise appearance tomorrow afternoon (April 18) at Coachella and a May 17 performance on Prime Video’s ACM Awards.
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