Kacey Musgraves teases album with new single ‘Dry Spell’ : NPR

The sounds of conventional nation music “are baked into what seems like residence to me,” Musgraves says. Her sixth album, Center of Nowhere, can be launched on Might 1, 2026.

Kelly Christine Sutton

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Kelly Christine Sutton

Kacey Musgraves opens her new tune “Dry Spell” with fairly the grievance. “It has been an actual lengthy 335 days,” she sings, elongating the phrase “actual” in sly exasperation. “And the final time, it wasn’t good anyway.”

That is when one of the crucial admired nation singer-songwriters to realize arena-headlining standing this century shifts her focus from bemoaning how a lot time has handed since her final hookup to reeling off probably the most entertaining string of down-home double entendres for unmet need in latest reminiscence. “I am so lonely, lonely with a capital ‘H,’ if you understand what I imply,” she insists, with a deadpan suggestiveness that is accentuated within the music video. “I have been sitting on the washer.” By the tip of the cunningly pensive monitor and the accompanying clip, set in a dreary grocery retailer and co-directed by Musgraves and Hannah Lux Davis, she’s turned an array of nation cohabitation tropes on their heads and stared a bit of too lengthy, and longingly, on the ripe produce on show.

The primary single from Musgraves’ sixth album, Center of Nowhere, indicators the tip of a special type of drought. She acquired her begin in a folksy, multigenerational, tradition-steeped scene in distant East Texas earlier than sharpening her songcraft and simply distinguishing herself within the fratty Nashville of the early 2010s. The witty wordplay and artfully kitschy use of hand-played devices on her first two albums, Identical Trailer, Totally different Park and Pageant Materials, was a revelation, partially because of her knack for coolly, casually reflecting millennial social mores that registered as a departure for Nashville.

Musgraves’ subsequent tonal, stylistic and conceptual explorations — throughout the luminous reveries of Golden Hour, the cinematic Star-Crossed and the pastoral questing of Deeper Nicely — appeared needed. How higher to fulfill her stressed creativeness, and concurrently welcome new waves of genre-agnostic listeners into her viewers? Alongside the best way, she additionally managed to decouple her deep affection for nation music’s settings, signifiers and varieties from any lingering, or limiting, sense of obligation to its business gatekeepers.

Center of Nowhere, scheduled to be launched on Might 1, will stand as Musgraves’ gorgeous return: to Misplaced Freeway Data, the reactivated, roots-leaning label that initially signed her, solely to be absorbed into Nashville main label system earlier than she launched her debut; to her incisive contemplation of small-town environs, which now function a backdrop for her inquiries into grown-up solitude; and to arid, Western textures that intensify that panorama and hint its borderlands with Mexico. Musgraves has chosen visitor performers, together with Gregory Alan Isakov, Billy Strings, Willie Nelson and Miranda Lambert — with whom she shares a good-naturedly salty, long-time-coming duet referred to as “Horses and Divorces” — that reaffirm her place in nation lineage. But it surely’s the amassed perception Musgraves brings to the work that makes it an entire new landmark.

She sat down with NPR Music in Nashville for the unique first interview on Center of Nowhere and the mindset that formed it.

This interview has been edited for size and readability.

Jewly Hight: “Dry Spell” feels like one thing that would have come out of a extremely free and unguarded group textual content. However alternatively, it’s extremely well-crafted as a tune. How’d it take form?

Kacey Musgraves: I usually all the time have been in relationships. This was the longest interval in my grownup life the place I used to be alone, and I had gone via a break up. I used to be taking inventory of my relationships and what I would like[ed] in my life, and actually studying the best way to lean into being alone. I began actually loving my singledom.

It was a very long time with none intimacy with anybody else, and I had all the time feared that earlier than I skilled it, simply having this notion that I wanted somebody to be joyful, which I discovered to be fully unfaithful.

I wrote the title down — “Dry Spell” — and since [it was what I was] going via. I wrote most of this document within the longest single interval of my life. And it was actually enjoyable to be again within the room with so lots of my outdated collaborators and pals, Shane [McAnally], Josh Osborne, Luke Laird. No one does humor higher than these guys, and I used to be craving humor once more. That was a giant a part of earlier albums, after which I perhaps purposefully steered away from that, simply so I did not paint myself into some form of bumper sticker lane. After which life occurs: There is a divorce album, Golden Hour is its personal factor. Deeper Nicely is fairly introspective, type of calm and therapeutic. After which now we’re right here.

I actually cannot consider many, or perhaps even any, different examples of a rustic artist who’s a girl writing about thirstiness, need, with out even mentioning a male protagonist. How about you? 

No, I do not assume so. I feel numerous songs, individuals are attempting to persuade you of how horny they’re, and I am telling you the way I’ve not been getting any. Even the chickens are getting laid, and I am not.

Listening to “Dry Spell” made me consider while you launched “Merry Go Spherical,” “It Is What It Is,” “Observe Your Arrow” — these songs the place you are conveying sentiments in a low-key, matter-of-fact manner that sounds fully pure coming from you, however lands on this barely transgressive manner within the context of nation music. You may have had a knack for doing that. What do you assume it’s about your voice as a author and a vocalist that has made {that a} factor?

I discover the human situation fairly hilarious. I really feel just like the universe has a fairly killer humorousness, so I simply discover numerous humor within the on a regular basis. Certainly one of my all-time favourite writers did it finest: John Prine. I might be fairly introspective and perhaps heady or no matter, however I actually love anchoring one thing with that [sense of humor]. I really feel like we have to snigger extra on this fashionable loopy time.

It would not land the best way that it does, would not be as profitable or as humorous, if you happen to did not ship it the best way you do. Timing and supply is so necessary to comedy.

It began as a result of I knew I am not a textbook singer, like, finger on the ear, finger waving within the air, Mariah Carey-style. I do not contemplate myself that sort of vocalist, so I wish to rely extra on the subtleties.

I really like restraint in artwork and I feel it is laborious to do, particularly in manufacturing. I feel lots of people love loading up a monitor with as a lot as potential. I simply do not feel impressed by that. I really like for there to be room to breathe and a few unfavorable area in there. I feel with the supply of the lyrics or the melody, there needs to be that very same form of strategy. I am not convincing anybody of something. It is there if you’d like it and it is high-quality if you happen to do not.

I questioned what’s interesting about returning your focus to a small city setting when you’ll be able to deliver the entire perception you have amassed to it.

I feel it is a bit of little bit of that, however it’s additionally simply discovering myself being completely okay on this proverbial “center of nowhere.” And that may apply to many alternative issues. It may be how you are feeling relationally or emotionally. It might be somebody in between jobs. It may be between relationships and even geographically talking. I do come from the quote “center of nowhere.” The title monitor for the document and the final idea of it got here from being on this very singular interval exploring my roots once more like the place I am from in Texas, spending time there and getting again into horseback using and all this stuff. It was on a bit of journey to my hometown the place I simply was wandering round — there’s not a lot there — and I had seen this signal that somebody had put up there that I had by no means seen earlier than. It simply says, “Golden, Texas: Someplace in the course of nowhere.” And I liked that it was a bit self-deprecating but in addition type of assured within the sense that it is like, “We all know what we’re and we personal it.” It made an impression on me. I acquired actually obsessive about the idea of liminal area.

Liminal areas are outlined because the transitional area from in between a Level A and a Level B, usually not designed to truly hand around in. And if we’re talking a couple of bodily area, they’re often stuffed with individuals. We’re speaking, like, airport terminals, the place you are supposed to go via. There’s an eeriness to them, and a nostalgia, a bit of bit. I really feel actually drawn to these locations. For some cause, we’re all the time dashing to outline ourselves within the subsequent factor, whether or not it is a job or relationship or no matter. And I simply actually liked accepting that I used to be on this literal center of nowhere in lots of senses. I discovered numerous readability there. It is such a fertile breeding floor for something that is coming subsequent.

“I feel this album has loads to do with borders,” Musgraves says of Center of Nowhere. “The reality is Texas wouldn’t be Texas with out Mexico in some ways.”

Kelly Christine Sutton

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Kelly Christine Sutton

You have been speaking about going via a single part, however I feel you deserve credit score for extra than simply literal reportage on what was happening in your relational life. To me, one of many overarching themes of the album is aloneness and isolation, however it’s actually worlds away from “I am So Lonesome I May Cry.” Listeners aren’t going to listen to you pining for somebody or wallowing in heartbreak. You might be exploring wounds of absence, but in addition making all this room for reflection.

It is highly effective to know now that I do not want anybody to be joyful. As a result of now no matter I do select to place again into my life, whether or not it is pals, alternatives, relationships, it may be as a result of it truly actually serves me, as a result of now I do know I am freaking good with out it. So there is a confidence that comes with that, type of a readability.

There may be this notion that I am certain you have encountered, that conventional nation music is straightforward in execution and sentiment. You may have leaned additional into that facet of your sensibilities than at any time since your Texas Two Bits child yodeling days, and made music that carries emotional complexity and captures ambiguity and ambivalence. How did you select the sonic palette that might swimsuit the album’s perspective?

I really like conventional nation music. It would sound cliche, however when I’m in a interval of disappointment or heartbreak, I actually do flip to old skool nation music, the standard facet of the style. It is so comforting as a result of it is all miserable songs about being heartbroken. So you are feeling very seen.

I grew up singing Western swing, yodeling — very conventional nation music. These sounds are baked into what seems like residence to me. And so exploring them does not really feel like I am attempting on a hat that does not match. It simply seems like a part of me. It is all the time there to a point, however it felt good this time to actually lean into it. For me it is all the time about discovering the steadiness. If a lyric goes in that route actually laborious, perhaps the monitor is not, so it is by no means too on the nostril.

Within the studio, they name me “the ax man” as a result of we are going to load up a monitor with all these manufacturing components, and my favourite factor to do is get in there and simply one after the other begin muting issues to see the place the right steadiness is and what crosses the road a bit of an excessive amount of when it comes to style or area. I really like the eraser device. It is nearly like I can really feel the steadiness in my physique after I’m listening to one thing. The structure of the factor is absolutely necessary to me.

You’ve got cultivated these two actually intimate circles of collaborators, first, writing and recording with Shane McAnally and Luke Laird primarily.

And Brandy Clark, Josh Osborne, Natalie Hemby.

After which, starting within the Golden Hour period, working with Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk. You enlisted each of these groups to put in writing this new materials with you, and also you employed Tashian and Fitchuk as your co-producers and first band. How did you make the most of the specialties you have developed collectively?

Each crews have completely different robust factors. I am going to all the time love what I’ve accomplished with Daniel and Ian. They’re true musicians via and thru. [But] I used to be craving among the chew that I can obtain with a few of these different individuals for this factor particularly. And it was simply enjoyable. There was no urgent deadline or something. So I used to be identical to, “Hey, would you guys wish to get collectively and write some like tremendous nation s***? Even only for enjoyable, simply see what we will get.”

I feel it is gonna be actually tempting for lots of people to say that it is a return for me. I agree with a few of that. I’ve by no means taken some stand saying I am leaving nation. It is an enormous a part of me. I do not assume I may shake it if I even needed to.

I revisited the primary sit-down that we did again in 2013, and it struck me that your publicists have been pushing you to speak about your appreciation for the Nashville business group. No less than again then, you have been anticipated to indicate your devotion to the nation music business itself. That looks like a separate matter out of your relationship to the musical custom of nation music itself. How have been you in a position to differentiate between the 2?

Transferring to Nashville again in 2008, it fully modified my life. I feel it was the perfect transfer I ever made. I’ve a deep respect for the group right here. That has by no means modified. That being stated, I would not wish to be beholden by that both. So whereas I’ve continued to respect and nonetheless very a lot do and really feel a part of it, I’ve all the time simply needed to be sure that the one compass I am following is the one which feels proper to me, whether or not that is sensible to the remainder of the group or not.

That is precisely the type of unencumbered mentality that I’ve picked up on.

I’ve seen individuals try to pretzel themselves into the best of the transferring goal, and it simply doesn’t bode nicely for them. They may get fortunate and strike gold and have a second with that, however on the finish of the day, they do not actually have that basis to fall again on that has actually let individuals know who they’re. I feel I used to be scared from an early age of getting trapped in that.

The way you situate your music geographically has all the time been necessary, starting with depicting this small-town Texas world, and difficult simplistic portraits of it [before] pulling in components of Hollywood with Star-Crossed, after which with Deeper Nicely transferring into a special type of pastoral area, extra Greenwich Village city people revival. What’s interesting to you about returning your creativeness to small-town Texas?

For me, sonically, it is all the time about exploring the borders of nation music. I feel this album has loads to do with borders, and actually, [so does] each album of mine, as a result of nation shares fence strains with so many different types. I am actually excited by [looking] the place these two meet after which making one thing new. I really like bluegrass and there is a little little bit of that breezy ’70s, ’80s, ’90s nation that I really like a lot after which there’s additionally a lane the place nation meets conventional Mexican music, norteno and even zydeco down in Louisiana. So in a manner, I do not assume the document is any completely different than the rest I’ve accomplished, however it does lean a bit of more durable into the nation palette.

You talked about the Western swing that you simply got here up on. How current was Mexican regional music in your Texas upbringing?

God, we’re neighbors. So listening to these sounds come out of radios whizzing by or simply in my surroundings in both my small city or in Fort Value or Dallas, it is positively a really actual a part of Texas tradition. The reality is Texas wouldn’t be Texas with out Mexico in some ways. Although I’ve all the time been drawn to it, I’ve actually been lucky to get to actually expertise that first hand myself down there seeing numerous the vaquero and rodeo tradition and the place it comes from. And seeing how far again it goes and seeing the direct affect that it has had because it’s labored its manner into our Texas Western tradition — I simply have numerous respect for it.

Everytime you actually hearken to conventional mariachi music and also you hearken to conventional nation, the themes are the identical, the instrumentation is kind of largely the identical. It is coming from the identical coronary heart in the identical place, simply barely completely different areas, and I needed to actually discover that kinship. Lots of people do not know this about me, however I spend half my life residing in Mexico. That is the place I am going to decompress, to reconnect with the bodily world. I dwell in my head loads and there is a tempo there that feels very right down to earth. I feel via osmosis, not solely from simply rising up the place I did, however in my grownup life being round that, I feel it has simply labored its manner into the music.

We are able to observe the thread in your work from the Chilean people tune that you simply included on Star-Crossed to collaborations with Cuco, Carin Leon, paying tribute to Selena on the Houston Rodeo and enjoying with a mariachi band in Mexico Metropolis, and the best way you are incorporating Tejano textures on this album. 

Mariachi music is their folkloric nation, so to talk. It is simply so passionate and colourful and exquisite and stuffed with emotion, and it is sung with such gusto. I imply, while you’re singing these songs, you bought to sound such as you’re bleeding out on the bottom. It is a problem for me, as a result of I do not sing like that in my very own music. So studying a few of these songs has pushed me to faucet again into a few of that extra guttural singing with a bit extra zest and which means behind it, as a result of if you happen to ship it chillaxed, it isn’t going to translate.

On this fashionable time that we’re in, I actually wish to go an additional mile to actually present the Mexican tradition that I actually deeply respect it, that I see it, and that it issues. And that it is finally, in ways in which I wasn’t even conscious of, influenced me as an individual, who I’m and the music that I make at the moment.

The quilt artwork for Kacey Musgraves’ album Center of Nowhere

Courtesy of Misplaced Freeway Data

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Courtesy of Misplaced Freeway Data

You are about to do your first business listening occasion for this album in Nashville, and I noticed rodeo barrels and a longhorn bull on the premises. How are you presenting the visible aesthetic of this physique of labor?

It is these items of Texas and nation life that always get neglected. It isn’t attempting to persuade anybody that it’s overly nation or western, as a result of that is what could make one thing really feel cliche. It is nearly discovering these little components which might be so mundane that they are so neglected generally.

The album cowl, my sister took these pictures in Dallas at some point, and haters are gonna say that that bull is AI, however it’s positively not. We had my buddy Evan deliver a bull from his ranch, and we simply rode round Dallas and would rapidly get out and attempt to block site visitors with some cones. We had no permits or something.

Throughout this time interval, I wound up in Austin one night time and I went out to a brilliant divey dance corridor and there was a dwell nation band enjoying. It was very nice to see so many alternative varieties of individuals having the perfect time decked out of their western put on. It was sizzling Latino {couples}, it was sizzling Black cowboys, it was older white cowboys dancing with youthful cowgirls, and everyone was having such an excellent time dancing with one another. I used to be like, “Rattling, America must two-step collectively. America must be on the dance ground.” It is actually an awesome equalizer, and it is the place your variations form of soften away, and the one objective is to attach through music and have enjoyable and transfer your physique. It made me actually impressed to infuse a few of that Texas dance corridor feeling and rhythms into the document.

Together with these Carin Leon and Cuco duets, you have accomplished so many others that present how broad your musical pursuits are, from Zach Bryan to Miguel, Flaming Lips, Troye Sivan. On this album, it feels just like the pairings with Willie Nelson on “Unsure, TX” and Miranda Lambert on “Horses & Divorces.” What does teaming up with these different towering figures of Texas nation music imply proper now?

Generally I really feel like nation music could be very keen to simply accept individuals from different genres partaking in our world. And the identical lenience generally shouldn’t be proven for individuals who have began or been rooted in nation and are impressed to discover a few of those self same different genres.

Particularly if these artists occur to be girls. No less than, that is my remark. 

Sure, 100%. It may be painted in some form of traitor mild. For me, irrespective of who I am collabbing with, my viewpoint on it’s that I am bringing individuals to nation. I am not leaving something. It is bringing it to individuals that will not have identified about it or identified that they’d truly prefer it within the first place.

I needed to have Willie on this tune. He is just like the patriarch of reality in so some ways. It was necessary for him to be the narrator, as a result of that tune, “Unsure, TX,” whereas it’s about an actual city in East Texas, I had enjoyable imagining that it is this place the place individuals can by no means actually truly make up their minds. Is it a city stuffed with f***boys the place accountability is non-compulsory and also you simply swipe, swipe, swipe and slide to the following possibility? The tune is an acknowledgement of that very transient fashionable courting habits after what I went via, and the right particular person to assist throw a bit of little bit of shade to that’s everyone’s favourite grandpa, Willie Nelson. He would possibly even be a great-great-grandpa, however he is additionally a gangster.

The collab with Miranda, there’s an entire story there.

I used to be conscious that manner again, while you have been working in your first main label album, you’d written the tune “Mama’s Damaged Coronary heart” and she or he wound up attending to document it for her album 4 the Report as a substitute.

Yeah. It was two singers from two close by, small Texas cities. There’s loads that comes with that. Then we every take our personal completely different paths, each main us to Nashville at completely different instances. There was all this pleasure behind “Mama’s Damaged Coronary heart” for me. It was gonna be my first single and I liked the tune a lot. I had been a workers author for years at that time, writing for different individuals and had lastly felt like I used to be accumulating songs that felt like me that I did not wanna pitch to anybody else.

Then, the tune will get pitched to her with out my consent or data. It was a difficult scenario. She ended up loving the tune and she or he actually needed it. And I had different co-writers to contemplate.

I knew I must return to the drafting board. And finally, I am actually glad that I did, as a result of it compelled me to put in writing “Merry Go Spherical,” which ended up making far more sense for me anyhow, aesthetically and lyrically, to kick my complete factor off, versus “Mama’s Damaged Coronary heart.” And that ended up going No. 1 for her. So in the long run, everybody gained as a result of I used to be in a position to let go of one thing.

We would misplaced contact for years and would not contemplate one another pals. I noticed her on Instagram at some point, using one in every of her horses, and I used to be like, “Nicely, we ain’t pals, however I suppose we’ve two issues in widespread, horses and divorces, that is for certain. Wait, that might be a extremely humorous tune. What if it is a duet together with her? What if I acquired her to put in writing on it?” I simply randomly reached out to her and I used to be like, “I do know we have had our s*** over time, however pay attention, we have at the least acquired two issues in widespread. I am not attempting to be your buddy. You bought your life, I’ve mine. However I feel this may be a fairly f****** humorous tune, and we must always write it with Shane [McAnally].” And he or she was like, “Hell yeah, I am in, let’s do it.” So it was very full circle in so some ways. We aired out any of the outdated laundry. We had some laughs and wrote the tune in a matter of some hours.

It’s a fairly epic pairing.

I feel it might be additionally a micro illustration of what I want that the world would do generally, simply f****** sit down and poke enjoyable at one another, have a beer and name it a day.