Kacey Musgraves‘ 2019 album Golden Hour catapulted the singer into the mainstream and even earned her four Grammy Awards including Best Album. But with her next LP, the singer is taking things in a bit of a different direction. Musgraves has been endlessly teasing the new release and she’s now revealed some of the surprising musicians that inspired her upcoming songs.
Musgraves sat down for a cover interview with Elle where she recounted her quarantine experience and offered some insight into the new album. In the conversation, Musgraves name-drops some musical inspirations like Bill Withers, Daft Punk, Sade, the Eagles, and Weezer. “I feel like I don’t belong to country in any way on one hand, but on the other hand, I’m deeply rooted in that genre,” she said. “So I’m not owned by it.”
While Golden Hour was written during a period of falling in love, her upcoming record was made as she was processing emotions surrounding her divorce. But instead of recounting the explicit details about her breakup, the singer says she instead tells the story of “two people who love each other so much, but they cannot make it work in the physical realm to be together, because it’s just not written in the stars for them.” Musgraves continues: “It almost takes the blame off the two people, which is what I like, because it could be easy in a heartbreak to be like, ‘Well, you f*cked up, it’s your fault.’ ‘No, you f*cked up, it’s your fault.’ And it’s like, ‘No, let’s just blame the stars. Let’s just say that we’re not meant to be.’”