No one could have predicted that alternative, pop, folk, and country fans alike would be swooning over the same album to the extent that are doing so over Kacey Musgraves’ 2018 LP Golden Hour. The Texas artist is unequivocally proving 2018 to be the year of reformed biases, as Golden Hour amplifies her vintage country style to appease her traditionalist fan-base, yet also branches off into an upbeat web of folky-pop. Her rustic yet celestial voice pairs with an exploratory innocence to take the listener on a journey of true genre-crossing curiosity. Pitchfork was arguably the most accurate in defining why that journey has been so effective in rapidly winning over a horde of greenfield followers, as they claimed “The mystical grandeur of Golden Hour creates a magnetic effect as Kacey Musgraves sings simply about the world as if she’s the first person to notice, and you’re the first one she’s telling.”

The music world took notice of Golden Hour‘s sublimity and had a field day of appreciative comments. Here are just a few of the generous confessions:

That collective flood of gratitude was no serendipitous mistake. Golden Hour publicizes a combination of sounds that neither the mainstream nor the underground have heard in quite some time. Musgraves explained her whimsically strategic approach to the album’s eclectic construction to Rolling Stone, as she admitted “I thought there’s got to be a world where all these things can live together harmoniously – a place where futurism meets traditionalism. I still love steel guitar and banjo, but I thought it would be dope if we put that with a vocoder and explored that world.” The two-time Grammy award winner’s gradual progressiveness has already earned her the #1 album on iTunes along with a countless mess of critical praise. Expect this album to sit atop the charts for a long, long time.

Favorite Tracks: High Horse, Slow Burn, Space Cowboy, Golden Hour, Butterflies