Album Review: Golden Hour by Kacey Musgraves
- Salvatore Guimaraes
- 7 hours ago
- 5 min read
by Salvatore Guimaraes
Genre: Country/Folk-Pop
Kacey Musgraves’ “Golden Hour” is quite the amorphous body of work when you begin to peel back it’s layers, you find yourself sitting before a record that is both deeply timeless yet dated as it can be evidently cited as a point in time where the barriers of country would be blurred. There are very few records that can be considered truly monumental, groundbreaking even, and “Golden Hour” astutely ascends to its definition. I can only count on one hand, albums that I find myself practically beginning people to listen to, and this is surely one of them.
Even now as I’m writing this, I still can’t quite shake the uneasiness that I feel when trying to make sure my words can equivocate just how impactful this record has been to me. It’s completely changed my life, and that’s one of the rarest gifts that music can give you, when you understand that a body of work will sit with you for much longer than a few years but likely the rest of your life. The 2018 release from country-singer Kacey Musgraves was a doe-eyed smitten tribute to love that no one would quite expect to cause such a stir in the world of music as we know it. There’s a reason that at the 2019 GRAMMY awards Kacey Musgraves is nothing but speechless when receiving Album Of The Year—the most prestigious GRAMMY award an artist can achieve—she did not see it coming; and neither did we. The Golden, Texas native falls in as an outlier: left-wing country singer with a pierced nose talking about queer rights and drugs all the while hailing from her home state of Texas. It’s a sure spectacle in itself, but nothing that’s not already relative to the progression of the world as we know it, yet when you take an artist of her stature nonetheless, being able to carve out for yourself a prominent place in centralized country music, it’s an accomplishment.
Given all of this, who does “Golden Hour” pander to? Is it country lovers, is it country for people who have never listened to country? Left-wing psychedelic-loving millennials? Is it heavily contraindicated for people who uphold “traditional” values? But as we dive into the bulk of this record, it’s evident it’s for lovers of all kinds, this record is for anyone who has ever been in love, or those who are falling in love, it’s always love. A feeling that has always been so strong that the human body could never quite metabolize it, it has always found its way to express itself externally. You hear it in the production that is both parts intimate and beautiful while being incredibly spacious and thoughtful. Musgraves expertly utilizes the space within each track to give the listener a lot of breathing room. My guess? It promotes reflection and I believe allows the music to digest better. Take the warm and smitten title track that falls in on track twelve, the reverb and echo, the pauses between phrases, it allows you to just take it all in; just like watching the perfect sunset, perfectly still yet intentionally silent. I had first listened to this record in the summer of ‘23, quite lost in my ways, running short in hope for love—let alone having much belief in it yet! But in being able to sit down on the height of an abandoned fort I would always go to, watching the sunset and hearing this all for the first time, it was life changing. I’ve always felt like a hopeless romantic, or just a person with a lot of love to give but never the right person who could stomach it, I’d be stung so bad by life and I’d always return to the same place: love. It was an isolating feeling, to feel helplessly stuck in my ways that often felt like a curse rather than a blessing, I always hoped to have been less, to feel less, to know less; I wished to be watered down. But it wasn’t until hearing “Golden Hour” that everything changed, Musgraves had her world set on fire, and I don’t think I ever got over it. “Golden Hour” wasn’t just this testament to love and marriage, it was an affirmation to everyone who has ever felt the joy of having the capacity to love another that you are on the right path. It was this deeply existential moment where I found myself in realization that I shared something with a complete stranger, someone who I’d never know and likewise. It was that me and this total strange shared something in the way that we love and feel it so deeply, it was something I recognized within the music. It was this greater idea that if this random singer from Texas feels the same way about love that I do, then surely I’m not that alone out there, there’s so many people in this world and I’m just one of them.
Aside from the deeply impactful personal value, on an objective level too, the songwriting and production value of this record run high, all the while taking her risks. From the previous 2015 release, (Pageant Material), “Golden Hour” stands in as a decisive shift, yet it’s due to her singular, velvety, voice that she’s able to lend herself into whatever direction she chooses. While some would argue that the psychedelic existentialism of “Oh What A World” or the disco-pop revival of “High Horse” counteract or even clash with the records softer and more traditional moments,(“Butterflies” “Love is a Wild Thing” & “Velvet Elvis”) I strongly believe it doesn’t matter. While cohesion is important, does it always need to lie in the sonics? As you listen through the record, there is a clear progression of the narrative of the record, we begin with the much classical “Slow Burn” a nod to Musgraves’ upbringing and foreshadowing of her love, before diving into all of what encompasses love: family, friendship, the spectacle of time, and moral value. The diversity across the sounds I believe isn’t even quite as polarizing as some critics have described, but yes, it is still surely differentiating. However, this all feels as Kacey Musgraves’ way of taking you out of the house yet always reeling you back home. Anytime across the record where you feel like you begin to stray away from the main idea, you get pulled back in to where you started, it’s why two of the most experimental sounds to hear on a country record (“Oh What a World” & “High Horse”) are separated on both Side A & B. Art isn’t supposed to be good, or be pretty, it’s supposed to make you feel something, challenge you, and “Golden Hour” does just that, it’s so innately evocative it’s hard to be devoid of a reaction. A record that was so timely yet timeless upon its release, the unexpected platinum smash, award winning fourth installment in Kacey Musgraves’ discography is an essential record for any collection and one I believe that finds you when you need it. Just as she states on the beautiful wide-eyed title track, “All that I know//is you caught me at the right time.” To me, “Golden Hour” has always been more than just the music, or even love, it has always felt like coming home. No matter how hard I’d used to try to become someone else, whether that be less caring, more casual, less loving, less expressive with my emotions, it never worked; I always ran back to my humanity. This LP was always the gut-punch to shake me back to my senses, reminding me there’s nothing worth changing, only loving, and after years of fighting it, I gave in to my heart. Wherever you are, wherever you’re headed, I implore you to open yourself up to the world of color that exists inside this record—it’s magic. Find a space, find a time, melt into it and never be afraid to feel. And be happy you’re not like everybody else—it means you’re worth something.
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