{"id":10660,"date":"2026-05-01T13:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T13:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/kacey-musgraves-middle-of-nowhere-2\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T13:45:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T13:45:00","slug":"kacey-musgraves-middle-of-nowhere-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/kacey-musgraves-middle-of-nowhere-2\/","title":{"rendered":"No Man, (Mostly) No Problem: Kacey Musgraves Roams Free"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/04\/NEW-KM-MAIN-KELLY-CHRISTINE-SUTTON-scaled.jpg\" width=\"2560\" height=\"2264\" alt=\"\"><figcaption>(photo: Christine Sutton)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On <em>Middle of Nowhere<\/em>, Kacey Musgraves doesn\u2019t so much return to her roots as redraw the map entirely \u2014 one where solitude isn\u2019t a pit stop between relationships but the destination itself. Written in the aftermath of a breakup and shaped by long stretches of intentional aloneness, her seventh LP and debut for Lost Highway finds her toggling between self-sufficiency, mischief and the occasional bout of well-earned chaos.<\/p>\n<p>The opening title track sets the tone within seconds: sunlit acoustic strums, a low-end thump and Musgraves calmly declaring, \u201cIt\u2019s just me and me and that\u2019s all I need.\u201d It\u2019s both a mission statement and, as the record unfolds, a thesis she keeps testing. Because even in the wide-open emotional space she\u2019s carved out, desire \u2014 and contradiction \u2014 creep in quickly.<\/p>\n<p>More from Spin:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spinmagazine.com\/2026\/05\/american-football-lp4-review\/\">Older, Sadder, Better: American Football Leans In On \u2018LP4\u2019<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spinmagazine.com\/2026\/05\/deep-cut-friday-red-velvet-by-outkast\/\">Deep Cut Friday: \u2018Red Velvet\u2019 by Outkast<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spinmagazine.com\/2026\/05\/subt-searches-for-their-own-voice\/\">Sub*T searches for their \u2018Own Voice\u2019<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Take \u201cDry Spell,\u201d an LOL highlight that doubles as a 911 call for physical affection after \u201c335 days\u201d without it. The song revels in the double entendres and deadpan punchlines at which Musgraves has long excelled, delivered over a Western-tinged groove where you can practically hear the tumbleweeds (of romance) rolling by. That tension between independence and impulse runs deep: the woozy \u201cBack on the Wagon\u201d spins a possibly delusional yarn about a reformed drunken ex, while the four-to-the-floor \u201cLoneliest Girl\u201d insists everything\u2019s fine just a little too convincingly. Still, Musgraves makes a strong case that rolling solo will always beat the wrong kind of company.<\/p>\n<p>Musically, <em>Middle of Nowhere<\/em> leans into traditions shaped in small-town Texas dancehalls (pedal steel, Norte\u00f1o accordion and other border-blurring textures) but rarely plays it straight. \u201cAbilene\u201d is a campfire tale with an effective twist, while \u201cEverybody Wants To Be a Cowboy\u201d pairs its barroom observations with a quietly pointed thesis about commitment in both love and life. Elsewhere, \u201cRhinestoned\u201d gets giddy and high on a soft-focus, \u201cJive Talkin\u2019\u201d-style groove, and the nearly rapped verses of \u201cMexico Honey\u201d swerve into something much more loose and horny.<\/p>\n<p>The guest spots offer both texture and star power. Miranda Lambert shows up for the amusing \u201cHorses and Divorces,\u201d a natural pairing of two artists who\u2019ve long thrived just outside Nashville orthodoxy (and who once had <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2026\/music\/features\/kacey-musgraves-middle-of-nowhere-country-masturbation-1236732175\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cgrass-fed, grade-A\u201d beef<\/a> between them), while 93-year-old Willie Nelson drifts through \u201cUncertain, TX\u201d like a knowing ghost (bonus: hearing him utter the priceless <em>bon mot<\/em> \u201cdumb ass\u201d).<\/p>\n<p>Closer \u201cHell on Me\u201d strips everything back to Musgraves\u2019 beautiful voice, guitar and regret, landing on a note of quiet clarity rather than resolution. That\u2019s the trick of <em>Middle of Nowhere<\/em>: it never rushes to define what comes next. Instead, Musgraves lingers in the in-between, finding humor, heartbreak and a surprising amount of peace along the way.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"960\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/04\/Kacey-Musgraves.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-659599\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/04\/Kacey-Musgraves.jpg 960w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/04\/Kacey-Musgraves-340x340.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/04\/Kacey-Musgraves-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/04\/Kacey-Musgraves-498x498.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\"><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, <a href=\"https:\/\/spinmagazine.com\/2021\/07\/the-greatest-rock-stars-of-all-time\/?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=bottomlink&amp;utm_campaign=yahoolink\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(photo: Christine Sutton) On Middle of Nowhere, Kacey Musgraves doesn\u2019t so much return to her roots as redraw the map entirely \u2014 one where solitude isn\u2019t a pit stop between&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3509,5982,117,24,88,5950],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kacey-musgraves","category-miranda-lambert","category-new-music","category-pushly","category-reviews","category-willie-nelson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10660\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}