Music Review: Star-Crossed by Kacey Musgraves

Catherine Goodman, Editor-In-Chief

Kacey Musgraves’ recently released her much anticipated country-pop album Star-Crossed following her highly successful 2018 album, Golden Hour. The album portrays the mixed emotions the singer confronted throughout her marriage and divorce. 

The title track is laced with vulnerability as she paints the portrait of two lovers ripped apart. The singer intertwines her modern reality with the fairy-tale persona by explicitly detailing the motions of her divorce including signing the papers, moving out and forsaking her ex-husbands last name. The track serves as a promise to the listener for a gut-wrenching album loaded with heartbreak anthems and beautiful songwriting. However, the listener is left empty handed.

The album comprises 15 tracks, all of which depict a different chapter of love, angst, regret and rebirth. While endearingly honest, the production of the record off-puts the listener. Her voice is wildly edited to the point where in songs such as “Good Wife” her voice is hardly recognizable. This is in sharp contrast to the intimate style of which Golden Hour was produced. Likewise, the songwriting is simplistic and without real depth teetering on the edge of inspiringly melancholic, though falling short.

Standout tracks include “Justified”,“Star-Crossed,” and her number one hit “Breadwinner.” These songs align with the modern day reclaiming of vulnerability and female empowerment. These songs also have the least heavy editing, causing these tracks to further stand out against a plethora of other rather boring tracks. 

Overall, the album is pleasant to listen to, however forgettable. For the broken-hearted, the album is the perfect place to find solace in common ground, but nothing extraordinarily insightful.