Miranda Lambert

Katy Perry will melt your popsicle, and Lady Gaga wants your love and your revenge, but neither makes lust and a potential ass-kicking sound as intoxicating as Music Row’s crazy ex-girlfriend, Miranda Lambert. Lambert’s spitfire persona does a bit of growing up on 2009’s Revolution, learning when to holster her guns and belt out a tearjerker like “Dead Flowers”—though she still kicks up plenty of shit through the rockabilly shuffle of “Only Prettier” and the spunky wordplay of “Me And Your Cigarettes.” Lambert isn’t bucking for a fight on every track of Revolution, but the record does well to prove that the singer-songwriter can deliver an emotional wallop as well as a right hook. 2011’s Four The Record ups the ante even further, and contains Lambert’s biggest hit to date, “Baggage Claim.”

Updated 04/12/2012