With her new album, star-crossed, Kacey Musgraves turns pain into art.
In an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Kacey explains how a guided mushroom trip she took at the beginning of the year opened up her mind to the concept of the album, which is built around a three-part, modern-day tragedy.
“I want the chance to transform my trauma into something else, and I want to give myself that opportunity even if it’s painful,” Kacey describes of her mindset going into the trip that she calls “completely life-changing” and that led her to the idea for the title track.
The Grammy winner explains that through observing the structure of ancient Greek tragedies, she created her own definition of what it means to be “star-crossed.”
“It’s to be fu**** by love or luck. You’re ill-fated. It’s just not written in the stars, it is not for you,” she says.
Kacey embraces the dark moments on star-crossed, noting that while it’s “daunting” to display the challenging moments in life, she’s “excited” to share her journey through the personal songs.
“I think it would’ve been extremely awkward if I acted like this last chapter didn’t happen for me,” she says in reference to her divorce last year from fellow artist Ruston Kelly. “You saw my highlight reel with Golden Hour and this is the other side of that, and there are beautiful parts of that, too.”
star-crossed will be released on September 10, alongside a film of the same name premiering on Paramount+.
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.