NPR Music - New Music Friday: The best albums out Sept. 13

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

NPR Music's Ann Powers and Hazel Cills are your guides to the best music out this Friday, Sept. 13, including the 10th studio album by Miranda Lambert. Postcards From Texas is a new chapter for the onetime Nashville Star contestant who has become one of that industry town's most reliable songwriters and stars — and also a return to her home state.There's more, including a album by Robyn Hitchcock made up mostly of covers of songs from 1967, a year he describes as "a portal between childhood and the adult world." Plus: three ambitious albums by indie faves stretching their sounds, and a consideration of the way the classic "outlaw" label applies to the careers of women who break the rules.Featured albums:• Miranda Lambert, Postcards from Texas• Nilüfer Yanya, My Method Actor• Foxing, Foxing• Robyn Hitchcock, 1967: Vacations in the Past• My Brightest Diamond, Fight the Real TerrorFor the complete list of albums out Sept. 13 and to stream our New Music Friday playlist, visit https://npr.org/music.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Just a heads up, this episode contains explicit language. Well, Hazel, there's a lot of big releases this week, huh? So many big releases. I'm thinking of one in particular. One special one, special to our hearts here at MPR Music. Yes, there is one album coming out today that is definitely very, very special to people at MPR Music. And that would be by the band Bad Moves, and it's called Wearing Out the Refrain. Our own beloved, Daoud Tyler Amin, is in this band.

Hazel, you've seen this band. Tell us all about it. Yeah, bad moves are an incredible group. Like, just, like, nervy, kind of, like, post-punkky energy. You know, I know people who listen to the show regularly hear Daoud often on this show talking about new music, but to hear him play in this band and to see him live is just a whole other experience. How can we embarrass Daoud? How can we embarrass him the most?

Let's talk about that transformation that he goes through when he goes from mild, madder, gentle, intellectual, that would Tyler Amin on the pod to glorious rock star of bad mood. I mean, I mean, it's cool because, like, I obviously I get on this mic all the time and I talk about music, but I don't play music. I don't make music. Right, me neither. I mean, I did play folk mass when I was a kid or whatever, you know. Maybe I, you know, took a voice lesson here.

there 20 million years ago, but I'm not a rock and roller. I'm not in a band. No. Okay, why are we talking about bad moves? On one level, sheer nepotism. Let's just admit it. You know, we have this platform, our friend made a record, let's say it. But also, I think it's worth thinking about how music critics come in all different shapes and sizes, and there's a, beauty to someone like Daoud who plays in this really cool band, puts out records, knows the road life, knows all the musical aspects, you know, really the language of music. and then also talks to us and edits great features and, you know, occasionally writes about music as well. Yeah.

He's going to hate this. I'm Anne Powers, and I am the critic and correspondent at MPR Music, and I'm here with my beloved Hazel Sills, editor and writer and goddess and non-musician of MPR music. Thank you for all of those, that beautiful description. Anyway, it's Friday, and that makes it New Music Friday. And we're here to talk about the most impactful, exciting records of the week. Later in today's show, inspired by some of the releases we'll be discussing, we're going to talk about what it means to be an outlaw in popular music today and particularly what it means when you are a woman or a person of color.

But first, we're going to talk about a woman who really has to find that term within country music over the past 20 years. Miranda Lambert. Miranda's releasing her 10th album this week. It's called Postcards from Texas. She is, to my ears, really the most accomplished and consistently great artists. in contemporary country music. I think she's often overlooked in all the discussions and blah, blah, blah,

about all those male artists that are maybe more controversial like Morgan Wallen, but Miranda is like the backbone of contemporary country music. And this album is interesting because she has relocated spiritually, if not completely, to Texas where she's from. She still has a compound here in the Nashville area, but she's really identifying with Texas, and this album is driven by the concept of her life in Texas. So it's a major move for Lambert.

What do you think, Hazel? How did this album strike you? Did it feel like a refresh, like a change? It did feel like a refresh and a change, but maybe it felt a little bit more to me like a stripping down. There's sort of like a relaxation to this album I felt like listening to it, And I guess maybe that is tied to the fact that she, as you said, kind of return to Texas where she grew up and was clearly really invested in making this album that kind of pays tribute to the quote, Texas sound quote, that she was envisioning. And yeah, there's a real sort of simplicity to this record.

And it's songwriting and even the way that she sings these songs that really made me feel like, oh, this is an album that proves, as you said, that she's like, a backbone of country, that, like, she can make these really beautiful, minimalist country songs that just kind of, like, get to the heart of very clear, concise ideas about, like, love and homeland and things like that. Are you thinking about I hate love songs? That's a pretty basic idea about love right there. Have you ever love somebody? I could preach your love Sundays.

From the deepest part of your tattered heart. I love when, I mean, especially someone like Miranda who, you know, she has so many notes in her discography of, like, being this kind of, you know, fiery, like, revenge-filled figure. Right, literally, literally, like, kerosene. And she's been talking a lot about that because she's got a couple, like, actually, I set something on fire songs on this. on this record. Totally. She's back to setting fires. But then I love songs

is a totally different kind of thing, right? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's like, it's to hear her sing a song like that where, you know, the message of it is really so plain spoken

and vulnerable, you know, I, what does it feel like to need someone, to love someone, and then that get taken away from you and they're not really being this drama to it. It being like,

this kind of simple breakdown of a relationship and to just have that chorus of I hate love songs you know she sings it so beautifully and but yeah it's another example of the kind of moments on this album where it really feels like she's kind of zeroing in

on this very clear simple idea and it's just beautiful to hear her in that mode well there's a variety of approaches on this album too at the top we heard a little bit of looking back on Luchenbach, which is a song she wrote with two of her longtime pals, Natalie Hemby and Shane McAnally. And that sort of got that twangy, classic, almost like performative country feel.

But the thing is she can do that so well, too. I mean, one of my favorites on this is, like, runs on such a corny joke. It's also a collaboration with those two songwriters. It's called Alimony. And just listen a little bit to the verbal hook that she pulls off in this, which is straight out of he-ha or something, but it's also just totally works, you know?

I laugh so hard every time I listen to my song. But Hazel, I have a question because we're sitting here talking about how Miranda's getting back to her basics, but they're not entirely, it's not entirely country. I texted you

the other day while I was listening to this record. I hear cold play, which might be the weirdest thing I've said, but I don't know, it resonates with you. Yeah, no, when you said it, when I first heard this album, I was like, I'm not hearing cold play. But then I listened again. And that song, I hate love songs, which we talked about, that ends with kind of this like grandiose, almost like stadium rock energy. There's kind of like a millennial whoop like thrown in there.

And I, yeah, I was like maybe, you know, she left her label Sony Nashville last year and she's on Republic Records now. And it did kind of get the wheels spinning in my head of like, you know, she's selling this album as like, you know, a return to this like Texas sound or this kind of like pure country sound. But you're right that there are moments on this album where I'm like, is she sort of stretching beyond that into like classic rock spaces or sounds? Yeah, the arrangements like you're saying, you can hear, I mean, she plays stadium. So you can hear it in a stadium for sure. I don't know. The charts are weird. but you're mentioning her business moves,

and of course she now has the same arrangement that Morgan Wallen has, which is that she's on Republic, but Big Loud is another company is doing her country distribution, and she started her own label, Big Loud, Texas. And maybe we'll just go out on a little bit of a Texas song she covers. She covers a song by David Allen Coe on this record,

which, of course, one of the original outlaws, back in the day. And that song is called Living on the Run, which actually she's not doing now, though. She's very settled. But Miranda, for me, is that rule breaker who also plays by and breaks the rules at the same time. I think she does a good job of that on this record. Totally. That is Miranda Lambert, postcards from Texas. And I'm going to be listening to that one a lot, but maybe chopping it up with this next one we're going to talk about. What do we have next? There is a great album out today by the artist Nilliferyanya. It is her third album and it's titled My Method Actor.

And this is the song Keep On Dancing. What you're looking for? Shut up and raise your glass if you're no sure. Still like and smart. It's barking mistribal. Stereotypical. Keep your advice. I'm giving any thought.

Deep a score. Nola for Yanya is the U.K. singer-songwriter. She's a rock star to me. She's just incredible at what she does. And as I said, this is her third album. And it really kind of just builds on what she's been doing across the course of her still quite young career, making these, like, incredibly complicated, kind of smoldering,

dark love songs that just make really incredible use of her very pretty, beautiful, soulful voice and the way that she wields power with her electric and acoustic guitar. It's just another example of how great she is at her craft. And yeah, I was curious, Anne, what did you think of this album? Well, I've been following her since late 2010. I guess I saw her first, maybe at South by Southwest, I know, know in 2018, our former leader, Bob Boylan, recorded a South by Southwest session with her. And at that time, she intrigued me because of the kind of blend of influences she was showing.

It was pretty early on, tell me if you think this is right, Hazel, but it felt like she was a pioneer of blending rock or at least guitar-based music with maybe R&B influences, a little jazz. She felt very early on in what now has become almost. like a standard approach to rock. Yeah. But at that time, I remember going to see her and thinking, well, she's great, but she's really young and she doesn't really quite have control, especially of, especially interestingly of her voice.

So I feel like she, on this record, I can see how she's figured out how to make her voice a texture within the blend. Yeah. Yeah. I think in her early years, like, you know, her big earliest song was like that song, Baby Love. You know, it was really kind of like her and her. guitar, which is exceptional on its own. But I think as her career has grown, as she's sort of put out albums, she's really kind of complicated how her voice, as you said, fits into the mix of her music

and also expanding her sound, like, you know, something I really love about her music is kind of the way that her songs build. She's really good at, like, creating pressure in her music. And her music, Yeah, on this album especially, I feel like it's kind of like the grungiest textures we've gotten from her. Like the way that she uses live percussion, but then also drum machines. But yeah, kind of her voice, which might have just been, you know, standing on its own in a spotlight in her earliest music is now like roughed up in the mix of the music she's making. And it seems to compliment what she's talking about on this record in a song like Method actually. I mean, it's very much about questioning authenticity, wondering about questions of identity, where do I go? It's a young woman's record for sure, but there's a lot of confrontation with,

I don't know, positivity, and I like that. Is that a word thing to say? Is that a word? Like, she's not having any of it if it's wrong or if it's bullshit. You know what I mean? Yeah. I like that. There is an anxiety to her music, lyrically, and then it comes through in the music itself. You're like, you feel like everything is kind of closing in on you the way that she structures her songs. Yeah. Oh, that's so, that's so right. I've been reading the fiction writer Claire Keegan. Have you ever read her? She's an Irish writer. Well, I don't know. I found one of her stories on the New Yorker fiction podcast. And George Saunders was talking about all writers love this writer Claire Keegan because she knows how to build tension in her stories,

imperceptively build tension. So by the end, whatever happens, she's like, oh, I mean, she doesn't write mysteries. It's like stories of men and women, family life. And maybe that's a little bit of what we're saying about Nillifera-Janya. There's this kind of imperceptible tension in a song, like binding that by the end, you're feeling a lot of feelings that maybe you didn't expect.

That was Nillifur Yanya's album, My Method Actor. And there's also another album out today that I want to highlight by the band Foxing. It's their self-titled album, and this is the song, Greyhound. Foxing is a Missouri-based band. Their sound is a little hard to qualify. I feel like a lot of people think of them as like an emo revival group, but this album, it's their fifth album, and it's interesting that they've self-titled it, like, as their band name, because to me it just sounds like a blowing up of their sound or like a complete expansion of what I thought they were doing in their music. Their music has always had this, you know, kind of like nervy, you know, as I said,

emo quality to it. But I don't think I've ever heard their music be this intense. Like there's a grandiosity and a drama to this work that I personally hadn't heard in their music before. Yeah, I mean, this record, when I put it on, it's like, are we talking about a metal record without Lars Gottschurch? That's what I thought too, yeah. Without Lars in the mix? I mean, you know, that I felt like I wanted to call him up and say swoop on in for special guest appearance. Yeah, what's going on, Lars? We need you to guide us through this. But it really starts with that.

I mean, by the second track, Hill 99, I thought, okay, I'm seeing black t-shirts. I'm seeing long stringy hair. What's going on, you know? But then it gets almost like a soulful, it gets, you know, kind of goes in if it's wrong to say future islands. Help me out here. where does it go? It definitely, I mean, I feel like there are moments on this album that very much give like a metal band, like a screaming intensity.

But then there's an atmospheric kind of beauty to some of the compositions. Like the reason I love this song, Greyhound, that song is eight minutes long. Like, it is an epic. But there is such a beautiful kind of like softening and like hardening and like, you know, slowing it down, building it up. and it feels like eight different songs in one song. Right. And that's kind of how I felt listening to this album

where, you know, one moment I thought I was getting a certain kind of music and then another moment I was getting, you know, something much softer. I was reading a piece in stereo gum about this record. And Connor Murphy, the singer, was saying they went through a lot of inner band tension while they were making this record. And A, I applaud them for getting through it. and B, I applaud them for putting that tension into the music, because I feel like you can really hear.

I mean, it's not a mess. You just can hear the struggle, though. I guess we're talking about different kinds of tension. Different kind of tension. Anybody get that post-punk reference? Write me in and you win a donut. Yeah, but this record made me, actually made me kind of feel not nervous, but it's an intense listen, let's just say.

And you can hear that in the lyrics too. I mean, like, there's a refrain on that song, Greyhound, where Connor Murphy is basically singing about feeling like he is nothing left to give. Like, there's a darkness to this album. And it is interesting to me that, yeah, as you said, you know, as they were making it, the band, like, thought they would break up. Right, right. But they came together to put this out. And, yeah, it's definitely, I feel like it's a massive step forward for them and their sound. That's foxing by foxing.

and I'm Anne Powers, I'm here with Hazel Seals. We're going to take a little break, and when we return, we have a few more records to talk about by some veteran artists. They're both gone in new directions, interesting stuff. So stay with us. We are back. I'm Anne Powers, and I'm here with Hazel Seals, talking about the best new albums out this week. And we have a fun one to talk about now.

It's by an artist I've loved since I was a wee tiny baby, Robin Hitchcock. This album is a companion piece to a book that's about when Robin Hitchcock was himself a wee little rock and roller. The book is called 1967 How I Got There and Why I Never Left. And it chronicles this brief period of time when the pubescent Hitchcock was sent off to boarding school in England and simultaneously began to discover rock and roll. Yes, you made your own amusement stand. Going to the picture. It's a wonderful memoir.

You can read it if you've never heard any Robin Hitchcock music before, and you'll get his hilarious wit, his wild imagination. Fun fact, he wrote the whole thing on his phone late at night using one finger, I think. And I don't know, it has a kind of a dream-like quality of the memoir. album gathers together many of the songs that Hitchcock refers to that shaped his sensibility. Hitchcock went on to really be the torchbearer for psychedelic rock, especially in the 70s with his band, the Soft Boys, and then in the 80s with the Egyptians and in his solo music.

And this album and this book reveals his foundations. And also, as he says in the very title, where he always stayed in this kind of beautiful moment of possibility that, infused rock and roll in the late 1960s. So really fun with covers of everything from Pink Floyd's The Emily Play to the Kinks Waterloo Sunset, some more obscure stuff. Hazel, what did you think of this album as someone who maybe, I don't know, you're just a little farther away from the 60s than I am? Yeah, no, it was interesting because I'm not super familiar with Robin Hitchcock's solo work,

and I feel like I knew him mostly as a member of the softball. Boys, which always kind of had like a psychedelic, you know, quality to its music. And it was also just really interesting to hear him return to the music that sparked his love of rock and roll to begin with and like go to these kind of classics and reimagine them with such simplicity, but also what clearly sounds like love. Yes. In this music. And intense love. I mean, for sure. There's dirty old river must you keep rolling, rolling on to the night? People so busy make me feel dizzy. Taxi light shines so bright.

But I don't need no friends. As long as I gaze on Waterloo Sunset, I am in paradise. There are some songs on this album that I clocked immediately, you know, Waterloo Sunset and like a Day in the Life and Itchiku Park and then some other ones where I was like, I don't know these bands. But in his voice, like it all, it just makes so much sense. Like, his voice is just so completely suited to, you know, these kind of like trippy, intense, like, you have freewheeling sounds of the 60s. And I was like, I feel like I just want to put on like a big pair of headphones. and like lay down on a shaggy carpet.

A shaggy orange carpet, hopefully. Shaggy orange carpet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe there's like a mushroom lamp next to me. Exactly. Maybe some mushrooms inside of you at the same time. You said it. I didn't see it.

Microdosing, microdosing, definitely. Microdosing. Wherever's legal. I don't know. But yeah, it's definitely an album that, like, you can really kind of hear, like, appealing back or sort of like him getting in this very beloved time machine. I mean, I mean, even the name of the title, Vacations in the Past, which is also the title of one original song on this album, it's like, oh, he really, he adores this era and he has not left it. Like, I believe

him. And we should say, just for those who haven't heard Robin Hitchcock's solo work or his work with, bands, the Egyptians and the soft boys, songs like this one, the man with the light bulb head, actually got played on alternative rock radio back in the 80s, and he was definitely a big star of that scene. So you can hear what he did

with psychedelic music and a track like that. But then on this record, the sound is much more stripped down, obviously. And as you said, Hazel, there's a love, there's an affection to these sessions. He has said, he wanted it to feel like a party. He wanted it to feel like just a gathering of friends.

And he did gather friends together like Kimberly Rue, who was his bandmate in The Soft Boys and later was in Katrina in The Waves, plays guitar here. Kelly Stoltz plays a bunch of different instruments. He really gathered together his friends to make this record and just it has that fun quality about it, you know? Yeah, it's a very, very fun album. And we have to, before we say goodbye to Rob and we just have to give

credit to Emma Swift, his wife, because not only did she apparently suggest he write the memoir, she also suggested he make this record. So thank you, Emma. And go listen to her great Dylan covers album, Blonde on the tracks, which kind of sets a precedent for this one. So I'm hoping for a little tour where Robin and Emma play covers together. That would be really fun. That's Robin Hitchcock, Vacations in the past. And we go from that record, the light, joyful, funny, relaxed record. that Robin has given us to something extremely different, Hazel, am I right? This next record we're going to talk about. Completely different.

On the day she died of store. It cut down the tree. The lights went on. It seemed about right. The next album that we're going to talk about is by the artist My Bratest Diamond. It is the project of multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Sharanova. It's titled Fight the Real Terror, and it has a very interesting backstory. It was written and recorded over a four-day power outage immediately after the death of Sheney O'Connor,

whose life and art serves as an inspiration on many of the tracks on this record. But this album is, as you said, very intense. I texted you. This album goes so hard. It does go. It's relentless, really. It's a really incredible album that's about kind of like so many songs about writing, you know, new rules, building new systems, romantically, politically. What did you think of this album, Anne?

First, I was so happy that Sharon Over made this album because so many of us mourned Shnade so hard, you know. And the death of Shnade O'Connor, it was an absolute tragedy. And through that tragedy, the story of her life came back into focus. and the story of her incredible integrity, her incredible courage, and the way that the music industry and the culture at large pushed back at her constantly and made her life so hard. So from the very first track on this record, I'm hearing rage, you know. I'm hearing keening.

There's a term, an Irish term, for mourning or grieving and creating a work in the spirit of mourning, and it's keening. And I feel like this record, is a genuine keening. But then it goes on to do other things as well. Yeah, yeah. There's so many inspirations on this album besides Sheneid's life that sort of filter through.

There's like a song that's inspired by the art collective guerrilla girls. Yeah. There's a song that is inspired by the Bernini sculpture, The Ecstasy of St. Teresa. Yeah. There's a funny one. There's like a funny one that's about all the kinds of lovers you should avoid. if you're going back into the dating pool,

which sounds out of context, but it somehow works. I mean, there's a theatricality about everything that Sharonova does. And she's done a lot of amazing collaborations. She was in the company for Illinois, the Sufian Stevens musical. She is part of the collective The Blue Hour,

which also includes composers like Caroline Shaw and Angelica Negroen. Their album that was nominated for a Grammy in 2022. But this album has a really, not a musical theater sense, but there's a theatricality to all of this, but it also feels immediate and that's what makes it work, I think. Yeah, yeah, theatricality and almost like a spiritual intensity or quality to a lot of the music. Yeah, it's a really stellar record that made me feel a lot of feelings.

Have you ever seen a in a desperate hour when no. Nobody's picking up the love. That's Fight the Real Terror by My Brightest Diamond. But that's not it for new releases this week. Here is a quick spin through some of the other records coming out today. The Jesus Lizard, one of the most exciting live bands of the indie rock era, has a new one called Rack. Not a Surf has an album called Moon Mirror.

Tinder Sticks back with their 14th album, Soft Tissue. And then fast-forwarding to a new generation, we have Sheperf. shirt from porches and the brilliant guitarist Wendy Eisenberg went on a journey to get Laszic surgery and made a really great record about it called Viewfinder. Oh, and there's also a fun record from the indie pop singer-songwriter Suki Waterhouse. It's got a great title, Memoir of a Sparkle Muffin. There's a new album from the rapper Foucher titled Pointy Heights. There's also a new record from the pop artist's Dor Jarre. It's called No Way to Relax when you are. Are On Fire. Great title.

That is a great title. There's also a new album from the electronic producer Floating Points titled Cascade. And this is the song Key 103. We're going to take a quick break. And when we return, we will be discussing a term with many definitions, Outlaw. Welcome back to All Songs Considered New Music Friday. I'm Anne Powers. I'm here with Hazel Sills.

And we've been having fun talking about some of our favorite records out today. A couple of them, I think, bring up this topic, this matter I wanted to talk about with you, Hazel. Clearly, Miranda Lambert's album does. And I would say Sharonova's record as well, both of them got me wondering, what does it mean to be an outlaw in music and particularly a woman outlaw? Now, this term is often associated with country music, and it's been associated with Miranda Lambert throughout her career, The original outlaws, of course, a songwriting collective supergroup that included people like Willie Nelson and Chris Christofferson, Whalen Jennings, did have a woman associated with that group, Jesse Coulter, Whelan Jennings' wife, but usually that term outlaw, either in music or

in culture in general, has been very masculine coded. So Miranda's occupied it throughout her career, I think through her associations with Texas, through her insistence on being independent, even within the major label system, but also maybe through her, you know, collaborations with people like Jack Ingram, who's a Texas singer-songwriter and other man in the scene. I don't know. What does outlaw mean to you? What does it mean to you?

Is it country? Does it feel like a country term? I mean, I think that when I think of what an outlaw is in music, first and foremost to me, it is someone who breaks the rules. or understands that there is maybe a system that they're expected to fall in line to and they choose not to. And I think the reason why that term is so potent in country, although I feel like it can exist outside of countries, because, like, as someone who is not super steeped in country music on a daily basis, like, maybe you are. Like, the country to me is, like, a black box of rules.

Yeah, it's all about social rules. It's about songwriting rules. It's about craft. It's about formulas, yeah. Yeah. And I think, like, it's interesting that you say, like, outlaw is often, like, a masculine descriptor or it's often male artists who get that terminology because I feel like to be a woman in any genre, like you are hemmed in by more rules.

It doesn't matter if you're working in rap. It doesn't matter if you're working in country. It doesn't matter if you're working in rock, whatever. I would argue it's far easier for a woman to be an outlaw if she even steps out of the line in a wrong way. But yeah, I don't know. I think outlaws can exist outside of country, obviously, but that term carries so much more power. And as you say, history within country because of the system. But it's interesting because I would never call Dolly Parton an outlaw, even though she's broken so many rules, probably broken more rules than anybody else in country.

And I wouldn't call her a linen outlaw. even though she certainly was, you know, very tough and wrote songs that shocked people, you know, songs like The Pill. There's a sort of very specific thing. It also, I think, has to do with community and maybe a code. Like I was thinking about the ways in which Miranda Lambert's outlawness evolved over time. Originally, I think it was almost about criminal behavior, you know, those early songs where she's like, I'm going to burn your car or whatever, you know,

which Carrie Underwood was also doing, and Carrie Underwood's certainly not an outlaw. No. But then by the time Miranda made her album the weight of these wings, her beautiful singer-songwriter-oriented album, and this was after her divorce from Blake Shelton and reconnecting with Texas again and kind of stepping outside of Nashville,

that redefined the way in which she was an outlaw. similar to the Whalen and Willie collaboration, where it's like we're not going to play by Nashville's rules specifically, which makes me want to bring up the ultimate women country outlaws, the chicks. Yeah, I mean, like, the chicks makes me think of, like, as you were saying, you know, with people like Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, you know, Miranda, burn and fire to stuff and Carrie Underwood. Like there is a kind of commercialism to a certain kind of female rage in country music. Like, you can be vengeful and spiteful and enraged to a point because you saw with the chicks, like that what, you know, what they went through over the course of their career and their explicit politics, like there was a line that they could not cross when it came to being a woman enraged with the world. Yes, absolutely. for those who don't remember, when lead singer Natalie Maines made a comment about protesting the invasion of Iraq back in 2003.

She made a comment on stage about that, and the chicks were basically banned from Nashville after that. They also originated in Texas, by the way, which I think is interesting. They were kind of coming from that outsider place already. But the chick's effect, it was a real chilling effect in Nashville that we still feel to this day. And, you know, thinking about Miranda Lambert and the chicks and then Morgan Wallen, who also said something that I will not repeat, that got him in a lot of trouble but was not banned from Nashville ever, really, like went through the shortest period of contrition ever, makes me want to

ask you what you think about when outlaw status is imposed on someone versus them cultivating it. And what's the dynamic between a woman inhabiting an outlaw stance and a woman being branded or called an outlaw in country or in any kind of musical form? Courtney Love also comes to mind in this category in some ways for me. Yeah. I mean, I think it's like, in my mind, there are like real outlaws. And then there are artists who are embodying a kind of romantic outlaw ideal. Yes. Which is not wrong.

You know, I love Miranda Lambert. setting a pair of wranglers on fire and like a woman keying her boyfriend's car and turning that into a hit song like I love that but I think like there is a kind of outlaw who's like a kind of punk and you know I'm thinking I'm thinking about Beyonce this week who you know the CMA nominations were announced and obviously she was you know snubbed cowboy Carter did not get any nominations obviously that was an album that was made inspired by her previous kind of snubbing and being not accepted in country circles for a song that she made with the chicks. Right.

To me, it's like to really be a real outlaw. Right. Like, is when you live your truth, you make music that speaks to your actual artistic and, you know, political principles and you are pushed outside the system for that. I don't know. Right. But it's like those artists weren't, not every artist is necessarily aiming to do that. Yeah. But it is, as you say, imposed on them.

But yeah, to me, there's a difference between, like, Outlaw as, you know, popular music, country music, romantic ideal and someone who's, like, actually been outlawed or shunned from their music communities. When you say there's an outlaw that's a kind of punk and then you say Beyonce, are you saying that Beyonce is punk? I think that's very intriguing. Punk in the, like, oppositional sense, right? Like, in the sense of, like, we're going to tear down the system kind of thing.

Yeah, I... Yeah, it's interesting because it's, Like, I don't know if Cowboy Carter's message or ethos was punk. But I think she clearly did something on that album. That was not what I was expecting her to do. I was expecting her to make kind of, you know, straightforward country album. Right, right. My favorite songs on that album are the songs where you can clearly hear her pop R&B spirit infused with the references that she's taking from country. So that to me is cool. I don't know if it's punk, but it's cool. I wrote about that album and celebrating its weirdness. Like it's that there's a way in which she, she's like, okay, I'm doing something completely beyond what I usually do, completely outside my norm. So I'm going to just throw out the rulebook.

And I'm going to throw in a little operatic aria here. You know, I'm going to do all these different things. And then the fact that Shabuzi was the star that emerged from that album, a guy who in his, you know, because we could have. expand this to say, we're talking about can a woman be an outlaw, but, you know, what does it mean when a non-white artist in either country or pop or even rock stands as an outlaw? And I don't know, I always think about this song by the blues artist, Gary Clark Jr., called This Land, and the video for that song in which he shows himself being threatened and taking up a gun.

And the song was inspired by Gary Clark Jr. moving into this, I guess, like a subdivision or something outside of Austin and some neighbors, you know, kind of raising an eyebrow that a black man could own a house like this. So, you know, for a non-white artist in a very white and arguably white supremacist's form like country to make a stance and claim space is out, you know, is an outlaw move in a lot of ways. Yeah, it's just like because of countries, you know, as we said before, rules and regulations and systems and politics, it's like it is so easy to like be an outlaw. Right. Because of how rigid, at least it seems to me the definitions can be of what country music is. And yet it's so hard to be an outlaw in the way that every system like that, every strict system like that, absorbs. innovation and absorbs rebellion and absorbs threats to its integrity. And so, you know, this leads to the post-Malone phenomenon, you know, this guy who, you know, I would say there is nothing zero outlaw about post-Malone. He's like so nice and gratiating and it's the first, you know,

boy with a face tattoo you bring home to meet mom or whatever. So if his being and his roots in hip-hop and his look and all that was oppositional in any way to country. Nashville just sucked it in and said, oh, we take you. Gobbled it up. I would define Beyonce's outlaws actions as a kind of a Robin Hood action. She's sort of occupying that role. She's going to take from the rich and give to the poor.

She's taking country back. And maybe that's why the CMA snubs feel particularly painful. because even though the CMA is known for snubbing a lot of innovative artists, artists like Alison Krauss and Vince Gill, Sturgle Simpson. Sturgle Simpson once took his guitar and busked outside Bridgestone Arena while the CMAs were happening to protest. Giving outlaw. Yeah, he's totally giving outlaw.

I mean, that guy, he's so outlawed, he changed his name, you know, to Johnny Blue Skies or whatever. So, you know, even though unconventional artists, as you're saying, have been excluded from Nashville and from, and particularly from this one award show, there's something much deeper about Beyonce's exclusion and about because it is this action meant to benefit more than herself. Yeah, absolutely. But of course, we also did talk about Shnade O'Connor a bit today. And I just think of Sheneid's life as one in which the outlaw myth is almost, it's. unravels, you know, because there's someone who paid so much for her youthful belief that she could speak her mind. And like the chicks, she really suffered within the industry for, it was ripping up a picture of the Pope and saying, fight the real enemy on Saturday Night Live and protesting abuse of children within the Catholic Church, which, of course, later she was proved very right on.

So I don't know, for me, Shanaid's life makes me like the outlaw myth less, you know. It makes me see the kind of limits of what it can give people. Yeah. It's like, you know, people want that rebellious, especially in music, it's like people want that rebellious streak from women to a point. It's like, once it starts getting too real, people stop being polite and it starts getting too real, it's like, oh, you can't be here. anymore. No, no, no, no, no. Like, we only want this on a, on a surface, a surface level. Well, Hazel, maybe we should honor Shnade by playing a little bit of her wonderful rendition of This is a Rebel song. Shnade, you'll be my Rebel forever. I miss you so much.

That's it for this week's New Music Friday. Come back next week for discussion of new albums by artists like Nubaya Garcia, Jamie XX, the great Manu Chow, and Mr. Bob Dylan, who is giving us another massive box set. In the meantime, you can send your feedback on today's episode to all songs at npr.org. Leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org slash music newsletter. And remember, you can get this show sponsor-free and support. our work by joining NPR Music Plus.

Go to plus.npr.org slash NPR music or search for NPR music in Apple Podcasts to sign up. Today's episode was produced by Noah Caldwell. Our editors, Jacob Gans. I'm Anne Powers. And I'm Hazel Sills. Always a pleasure to talk with you, Hazel. Let's go rob a bank.

Come back next week for more New Music Friday. Till then, happy listening. Your girl crazy's our kids. Oh, listen, English mind.