Kacey Musgraves pens a modern divorce album with help from the classics in Star-Crossed
On her fourth studio album, Musgraves travels a road well-weathered by country women musicians

As Kacey Musgraves’ star rose, her marriage began to free-fall. While Musgraves’ and Ruston Kelly’s meet-cute reads like something out of a Southern fairytale (meeting during an open-mic night at Nashville’s famous Bluebird Cafe in 2016, resulting in marriage on the eve of Musgraves’ critically acclaimed Golden Hour), the two divorced in 2020, three years after tying the knot. In addition to the highly publicized nature of their separation, murmurs about what this meant for Musgraves’ music echoed two words: divorce album. As much as Golden Hour was all about Kelly and Musgraves’ love and the rosy outlook on life it harbored, fans had their sneaking suspicions the next album would be all about the fallout. Musgraves now delivers the highly anticipated follow-up, star-crossed, at the one-year mark of their divorce; and in it, she’s traded out the fairytale ending for that of a Greek tragedy.
The love she felt with Kelly carried her last album, and Musgraves now admits “golden hour’s faded black.” The change in feelings is palpable, as star-crossed feels more subdued, with none of the glimmer of her Grammy-winning Golden Hour. Sonically, it’s her least country album, aside from her natural Texas twang; it’s definitely not the pedal-steel-heavy and two-stepping Pageant Material, with star-crossed leaning instead into the modern pop and disco influences that began to coalesce in Golden Hour. While she leaves her full Western get-up at the door, Musgraves continues to bring her Southern sensibilities with her, with a work that reaches to the soul of the country genre, if not the most obvious musical trappings.
Legends of “the brokenhearted country singer” trace Musgraves’ journey. As much as pop music delves into the aftermath of failed relationships, nothing feels like a salve to a broken heart like an old country record. A divorce spurs albums of epic proportions in the world of country. After singing “Stand By Your Man,” Tammy Wynette spelled it out in her 1968 album D-I-V-O-R-C-E. Fellow Texas stoner Willie Nelson traversed both sides of a divorce in his album Phases and Stages. Among all of the covers of “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” by The Righteous Brothers, it really pierces like a dagger when sang by the woeful Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood. Contemporary artists such as Miranda Lambert have kept that spirit alive (with her 2016 album The Weight Of These Wings, in which she grapples with her highly publicized divorce to fellow country artist Blake Shelton), a legacy that Musgraves would likely find very relatable.
The Golden, Texas native hearkens back to these storybook endings in the opening title track, where she sets the scene of a crumbling marriage that was doomed to fail, à la the most famous star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet. As she sings in the single “Justified,” “Healing doesn’t happen in a straight line,” and throughout star-crossed we hear her anger, grief, regret, and ultimately joy. As the feelings of sorrow and bliss waver, so does the music: She brings in the pared-down synth sounds from Golden Hour, underlined by simple strumming guitar lines. This all provides a more pensive air, as Musgraves meditates on all the shoulda-coulda-wouldas of her failed relationship.