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Kacey Musgraves was still high when she stepped out onto the stage at St. Andrews Hall in Detroit on the night of Dec. 7.
Not the high of lighting up a joint and puffing away - which, if you've heard her latest single, "Follow Your Arrow" (the video premiered today), could totally be a possibility - but of being, as of last week, a Grammy nominee.
"We're still celebrating," she said. And they should be.
Musgraves' "Same Trailer Different Park" earned her an impressive four nods, including ones in the coveted categories of Best Country Album and Best New Artist (if they gave awards for best title, she'd get that too; this is a pretty genius take on "same shit different day"). Anyone who's heard the album, easily one of the best country releases in the last decade, knows that she totally deserves them: Musgraves isn't just in touch with the zeitgeist, using an endearing tell-it-like-it-is cheekiness to address issues of gay rights and the reality of life in a small town, but the music - modest enough to be almost folksy - is effortless, dainty and irresistible.
She was all that - and infectiously warm and button-cute and real, especially when she admitted to being a "dumbass" when it comes to life - during her first headlining gig in Detroit, where the Nashville breakthrough demonstrated how you get the Grammy academy to love you: by being damn good.
Having an album as exceptional as "Same Trailer Different Park" is a big help, and the songs from said work were, of course, the focus of the night. There was "Silver Lining," the warm and fuzzy risk-taking mantra; "It Is What It Is," a casual sex song with heart; and "Merry Go Round," her first official single that reveals, quite hauntingly, the country life that nobody in country music wants to talk about. She also got dark on "Back On the Map," and - with her five-piece, all-man band scooting up around her while she played harmonica - turned "My House" into a wonderfully raucous hootenanny.
When she introduced a new song during the encore - "Biscuits," with a witty turn of phrase that's about to be everyone's life motto ("Mind your biscuits, and life will be gravy") - Musgraves played a hit. The world just doesn't know it yet.
Kacey Musgraves Follows Her Arrow To Detroit
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