Music
Kacey Musgraves Unveiled A Stunning Trailer For Her Star-Crossed Album & Film
Her fourth album is inspired by the aftermath of her divorce.
Kacey Musgraves’ golden hour has faded black, but now, her nights are Star-Crossed. On Aug. 23, Musgraves announced her new album Star-Crossed, the highly anticipated follow-up to 2018’s Golden Hour, which won four Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year. Her acclaimed third album was inspired by her blissful newlywed days after marrying fellow country singer Ruston Kelly. Now, as indicated by the just released title track “star-crossed,” her new album tells the story of the relationship’s bittersweet aftermath after their divorce. When Star-Crossed is released on Sept. 10, it will be accompanied by a 50-minute film to expand on the album’s lyrical themes.
In recent interviews, Musgraves explained that Star-Crossed will primarily focus on her split from Kelly. The former couple filed for divorce in July 2020 after two and a half years of marriage. “It’s two people who love each other so much, but for so many reasons, it just didn’t work,” she previously told Rolling Stone. “I mean, seasons change. Our season changed.”
Star-Crossed will feature the same candid songwriting you know and love — just from a much sadder perspective this time around. “I’m excited to share Star-Crossed just because people know me to be a songwriter that writes about what I’m going through,” Musgraves said in a new interview with Apple Music 1 host Zane Lowe. “I think it would have been extremely awkward if I just acted like this last chapter didn’t happen for me. So I think you saw my highlight reel with Golden Hour and this is the other side of that. And I mean there are beautiful parts of that too.”
Here’s everything you need to know about the upcoming album and and accompanying film.
The Star-Crossed Film
Musgraves did not come to play. On Aug. 23, the singer announced a film inspired by the new album, which will premiere on Paramount+ on Sept. 10, the same day the album is released worldwide. As seen in the intense trailer, the 50-minute movie will include cameos from Schitt’s Creek star Eugene Levy, You star Victoria Pedretti, RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Symone, singer Princess Nokia, and comedian Megan Stalter.
Just like the album, the film is a “modern tragedy told in three acts,” with Musgraves telling her story of heartbreak through a melodramatic lens. Just like with all good dramas, there’s a desert landscape, commentary on societal gender roles, and a car crash with an unresolved ending. “We wanted it to feel cinematic and epic without compromising the heart and the emotion, to feel fantastical and heightened and tell her story through the lens of art and fashion,” director Bardia Zeinali said.
The Star-Crossed Release Date
Musgraves announced on her official website that Star-Crossed will be released on Sept. 10. Taking to Twitter and Instagram, she also unveiled the mysterious album cover and warned fans to get their tissues out. “Fall apart September 10 with 𝖘𝖙𝖆𝖗-𝖈𝖗𝖔𝖘𝖘𝖊𝖉: the album + film,” she wrote. “A modern tragedy told in three acts.”
“I’m in this phase now where I’ve been holding onto Star-Crossed,” she told Lowe. “I’ve been working on every single little detail and it’s about to become everyone else’s ... Right now it is mine, it’s for me, and it’s shielded from outside opinion, outside attached meaning, it’s mine. You know what I mean? And then when you release it, it’s crazy that it then lives on in all these other multi-dimensions with all these other people’s relations, and thoughts, and opinions.”
The Star-Crossed Album Concept
As explained by Musgraves in multiple interviews, Star-Crossed is presented as a Greek tragedy, with the album structured into three distinct acts. Thematically, it starts with her shocking divorce, and goes on to examine the feelings she felt and lessons she learned afterward. “This last chapter of my life and this whole last year and chapter for our country — at its most simple form, it’s a tragedy,” she told Rolling Stone. “And then I started looking into why portraying a tragedy is actually therapeutic and why it is a form of art that has lasted for centuries. It’s because you set the scene, the audience rises to the climax of the problem with you, and then there’s resolve. There’s a feeling of resolution at the end. I was inspired by that.”
Contrary to some rumors, Musgraves is not pulling a 1989 and going full-on pop for her fourth studio album (well, fifth if you count her 2016 Christmas album). In fact, the artist has said that Star-Crossed is even more steeped in her country roots than Golden Hour, but also pulls from a wider variety of influences, from Sade and The Eagles to latin music and early 2000s R&B. “I always love when something classic or something traditional, and something futuristic kind of meet,” she told Lowe. “I think that there are certain aspects of this record that sound a little bit more country, I guess, than Golden Hour. But at the same time, I feel like I'm tapping into more widespread influences on this album.”
The Star-Crossed Tracklist
Along with the album announcement, Musgraves also unveiled the Star-Crossed tracklist, which comprises of three acts with five tracks each, making for 15 new songs.
- star-crossed
- good wife
- cherry blossom
- simple times
- if this was a movie
- justified
- angel
- breadwinner
- camera roll
- easier said
- hookup scene
- keep lookin' up
- what doesn't kill me
- there is a light
- gracias a la vida
On Aug. 5, Musgraves teased two new songs from the album on Dr. Maya Shankar’s podcast A Slight Change of Plans. During the interview, she sang the chorus of “camera roll,” a song about the pain of reminiscing on her marriage to Kelly through iPhone photos. “Chronological order / Ain’t nothing but torture,” she sang. “Scroll too far back / That’s what you get.” She also teased “angel” after the host asked her if she had written songs about change. “If I was an angel, I’d never have to change,” she sang. “But something’s gotta change.”
On Aug. 21, to mark her 33rd birthday, she teased new lyrics from “star-crossed” in a series of Instagram videos depicting a cloudy day gradually getting darker, hinting that a confessional divorce anthem was on the horizon. “Let me set the scene,” the first video reads, with each post revealing the next line. “Two lovers ripped right at the seams / They woke up from the perfect dream / And then the darkness came / I signed the papers yesterday / You came and took your things away / Moved out of the home we made / And gave you back your name.” The song delivered on its promise when Musgraves released it two days later, setting the scene for the heartwrenching tale to come.
