Kacey Musgraves redirected her focus to her small-town Texas roots on this year's excellent Middle Of Nowhere. One dimension of that exercise was an embrace of Tex-Mex sounds, including a dip into the regional Mexican subgenre Norteño on the Willie Nelson duet "Uncertain, TX" and performing shows with teenage mariachi musicians. Now she's diving all the way into that sound on a Middle Of Nowhere companion album.
Out in January, Middle Of Nowhere Vol. 2: Tex Mex Tapes features 16 new tracks exploring the connection between Texas and Mexico. Musgraves sings four of those songs in Spanish, including a new version of "Uncertain, TX" with regional Mexican band Intocable subbing in for Nelson. Today she's sharing two preview tracks, "Weekend In Texas" and "Mi Tesoro."
"Weekend In Texas" infuses Musgraves' smart and snappy pop-country songwriting with persistent organ stabs and mariachi horns, and it plays on the same Texas/Tennessee rivalry that informs this year's biggest hit, "Choosin' Texas," cowritten by her nemesis-turned-friend Miranda Lambert. "I got everything I need/ So I'll Tennessee myself right out the door," she sings. "And spend the weekend in Texas/ With all the playboys and Bob Wills on the dance floor/ Tequila for breakfast/ Leave all my cares behind."
"Mi Tesoro," meanwhile, is a Norteño traditional sung in Spanish. I'm no native speaker, but it seems like Musgraves holds her own here. Decide below, where you can check out both tracks.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Pretty Horses"
02 "Weekend In Texas"
03 "Hard Conversations"
04 "Denim On Denim"
05 "Figure Out My Life"
06 "Caballero"
07 "The Vacation Song"
08 "(Hey Baby) Qué Pasó?"
09 "Uncertain, TX (Spanish Version)" (Feat. Intocable)
10 "Mi Tesoro"
11 "Rodeo"
12 ""Tú Solo Tú [Live in Mexico City]" (Feat. Mariachi Oro De América)
13 "All My Exes (Kacey’s Version)"
14 "Desert Eyes"
15 "Pity Party"
16 "Before The Next Teardrop Falls"
Middle Of Nowhere Vol. 2: Tex Mex Tapes is out 1/15 on Lost Highway. Pre-order it here.