Deeper Well, Joe

A good album, here at the beginning of spring. A gentle album, the dazed blank face of Musgraves on the cover acting as no red herring of any sort, the music never really picking up any sort of speed or pulse at any point save for one (the climax of "Anime Eyes," which is over before you realize what is even happening, and feels at times like Musgraves was embarrassed that she lost her composure for a moment there). I really like this. If there was a time in my life when I would've dismissed this for its tempo, then that time is over. I am open to all flavors and all speeds of music. Let me judge each accordingly.

Musically speaking, I'm pretty proud of Kacey Musgraves for choosing this path. There was a more lucrative lane open for her, at a certain point. Might still be, but if so, they're rapidly closing. In a different world, she builds on the success of Golden Hour by adding gradually more and more pop to her sound. Earth-B's Musgraves is doing coordinated dances in stadiums while dressed in chaps. Here on Earth-A, she's leaning into folkier sounds, which feels brave, from where I'm standing (if choosing "millionaire" instead of "billionaire" could be considered "brave" in any capacity). I'm loving the James Taylor meets Bright Eyes indie-adjacent folk she's got going here. There are enough try-hard Swift wannabes out there already. To get big and then go purposefully smaller... I mean, she is a folk hero in this regard by at least two definitions.

I have some more to say, but it might be wise to take the opinions I'm about to dish out for most of the remainder of the review, and place them to the side. They are negative, but they don't make me dislike the album, despite the amount of space it takes up in my album review. I would indeed recommend this thing to someone who is looking for a chill back-patio-at-dusk album, something almost pop and almost anti-pop in the same breath. My issues are like small paper cuts. You don't don't get a paper cut and proclaim that your hand doesn't work. It's just a paper cut. It stings, but it's manageable.

Here you go: I think all the new-age astrology and therapy-speak and hokey basic-bitch-Instagram-influencer language is a little much sometimes. "Saturn returning" and birds as a sign from the beyond and the secret life of trees talking to each other and performatively quitting weed and gift-giving as a love language and even train-leaving-the-station metaphors... if you look at the lyrics without hearing the music, you'd leave feeling pretty unimpressed, I guess is what I'm trying to ultimately say, but it's also, like, I think the music is pretty and so I'm not all that concerned about the quality standards, it's the just the specific topics are just so dumb that it got to me sometimes.

Beyond the music itself being just so satisfactory that I can't really hate this if I wanted to, the two things that save me are, one, the fact that I'm able to acknowledge that this is kind of just me being an asshole and having issues accepting the fact that this is just how people speak now and I should probably get used to it, and two, the fact that Kacey Musgraves isn't really trying to sell me on anything. It would be different if somebody was talking about "Saturn returning" while trying to get me to buy their pyramid-scheme leggings. This musician is out here living her cringy truth and expressing it through music, music that really goes down well for me. Just really nice shit.

Probably underlining that other point again, though—sometimes I have an issue with language, and the way people use the English language, and cringe at the way some people speak, using slang that I think is basic, or weird, but really all of this is just speaking toward some insecurities, like maybe I'm uncomfortable because I don't really understand the language, and so I roll my eyes instead. There was an episode of Drag Race a few weeks ago when three of the girls said the phrase "gooped and gagged," all within the same like five-minute segment, and I turned to Pam and asked "wait, what the fuck does that even mean," and I was annoyed, ya know? I think if you asked me why I was annoyed I probably would've said something like "they keep repeating it," or maybe just that it sounds like something people would hear from TikTok and repeat or something, I don't know, but at the heart of the matter is really just me feeling like I can't relate to people who don't speak "my language," if that makes sense. It comes from such a deep place that I don't even know how I would start to address that impulse, or even if I should. Not everyone has to speak the same; as long as the person to whom you are communicating is able to understand your message, then it shouldn't matter how you convey that message. And yet still, I hear someone say words or phrases like (giving a wide range of examples here) "this is giving ___" or "broke the internet" or anything to do with "jawn," and I can't help but feel this tiny little gut reaction to voice my annoyance, and the only thing holding me back is knowing that if I say anything, then I'm totally 100% the asshole in that situation, no question about it.

Writing it out like that, I've convinced myself that this has a lot to do with phrases that we hear often vs. unique phrasing. Those examples I just gave are phrases we here all the time. The repetition is what makes them corny. If one drag queen had said "gooped and gagged" once, and she had made it up on the spot, I would've been impressed. If three drag queens are saying it, then that means they all took if from the general vernacular and don't have any unique thoughts at all, and that's corny. Kacey Musgraves says something like "dark energy" or "ugly crying" or "Saturn returning" and I know she's not a poet because I've heard those phrases before, used in the same context. And so the impulse to dismiss. When she says some bullshit like "you've got a dark energy," I honestly believe, during that split nanosecond only, that she is the dumbest person alive. This is wrong of me. I know it. The only reason I'm saying it now is because my own dark energy is a compulsion to suicidally speak truth about myself in album reviews, warts and all. Here's a wart. Deeper Well is not speaking my language.

But only literally. If we're talking figuratively whether it's speaking my language, then the answer is: hell fucking yeah it is. The language of music. There isn't a weak track on here, musically speaking. I don't even mind that some of them sound the same, just a little bit. Lots of acoustic strumming and Kacey's strong and calming voice keeping me steady. I'm finding recently that this is extremely up my alley. Maybe I'm getting older, more mature. Or maybe my Saturn has returned!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5