Golden Hour (Kacey Musgraves album)


Golden Hour is the fourth studio album by American country music singer and songwriter Kacey Musgraves, released on March 30, 2018, through MCA Nashville. Musgraves co-wrote all 13 tracks and co-produced the album with Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk. The album debuted at number four on the US Billboard 200.
Golden Hour received widespread acclaim from critics, winning in all four of its nominated categories at the 61st Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year and Best Country Album. The album's first two singles, "Butterflies" and "Space Cowboy", also won awards for Best Country Solo Performance and Best Country Song, respectively. Golden Hour also won Album of the Year at the 52nd Annual Country Music Association Awards. A country and country pop record, Golden Hour explores elements of disco, electropop, electronica, and yacht rock.

Background & Recording

Musgraves wrote and recorded most of the songs from the album throughout 2017; about the writing process she said: "I have a lot more love songs this time around, and I've never been one to write a love song and really feel it." She continued: "That probably sounds like the most depressing thing ever. I'm coming off getting married and being in this golden hour of my personal life, where all these things are finally coming to fruition. I found myself inspired to write about this person and all these things he brought out in me that weren’t there before." Some of the album was recorded in a studio above a horse stable owned by musician Sheryl Crow.
In a 2019 interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, Musgraves discussed being under the influence of LSD when composing the songs Mother and Slow Burn and how it helped her creative process; "I’m not going to tell anybody to run out and do anything that wouldn’t be suitable for their mind or their lifestyle, but it did have positive effects for me".

Promotion and packaging

On March 10, 2018, Musgraves announced the Oh, What a World: Tour in support of the album while performing at the in London. The first 12 dates of the tour were announced on March 12, with Musgraves stating on social media that tour dates in other countries would eventually be added. The tour began on October 13 in Oslo, Norway. Musgraves announced a second leg of the tour, titled the Oh, What a World: Tour II, in February 2019.
Musgraves' sister Kelly Christine Sutton took the cover photo for Golden Hour over a two-day photo shoot in and around their hometown of Golden, Texas. Sutton, who also is credited with designing the album's packaging, has previously worked with Musgraves for all of her albums' artwork. Of the cover photo, Sutton recalls Kacey "wanted to use this paper fan, and we are usually on the same page with ideas, but I couldn’t picture it. We went out into this wide open field. We needed one with no trees, so there was sky only. Almost immediately after we reviewed the photos, we just knew we had it."

Critical reception

Golden Hour received widespread acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 89, based on 17 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic rated the album four and a half out of five stars and called it "warm and enveloping, pitched halfway between heartbreak and healing—but lingers in the mind because the songs are so sharp, buttressed by long, loping melodies and Musgraves' affectless soul baring." Writing for The Independent and rating the album a perfect 5 out of 5, Roisin O'Connor states the album is "a reminder that sometimes – often, if you're looking in the right places – life is beautiful." Additionally, it was a Spin "Essential" and of the genre-bending songs on the album, reviewer Katherine St. Asaph calls it "not classicist, but perhaps it might be classic." The album was rated number one by the BBC poll of polls, a compilation of 'best of the year lists' across 35 music reviewers, on a list of the best albums of 2018. The album also placed number one in The Village Voices Pazz & Jop critics' poll for 2018.

Accolades

PublicationRankList
AllMusicN/AThe Best Albums of 2018
American Songwriter1Top 25 Albums of 2018
Associated Press2Top 10 Albums of 2018
Apple1The Best Album of 2018
Billboard2The 50 Best Albums of 2018: Critics' Picks
Complex36The 50 Best Albums of 2018
Consequence of Sound9The 50 Best Albums of 2018
Entertainment Weekly1The 20 Best Albums of 2018
The Independent4The 40 Best Albums of 2018
Noisey2The 100 Best Albums of 2018
NPR Music3The 50 Best Albums of 2018
Paste44The 50 Best Albums of 2018
People1Top 10 Albums of 2018
Pitchfork2The 50 Best Albums of 2018
PopMatters2The 70 Best Albums of 2018
Rolling Stone2The 50 Best Albums of 2018
Sputnikmusic1Top 50 Albums of 2018
Stereogum1The 50 Best Albums of 2018
Taste of Country1The 10 Best Country Albums of 2018
Idolator3The 25 Best Albums Of 2018
Time8The 10 Best Albums of 2018
Uncut73The 75 Best Albums of 2018
Uproxx2The 50 Best Albums of 2018
Uproxx1Uproxx Music Critics Poll: Albums
The Village Voice1Pazz & Jop: The Top 100 Albums of 2018
Vulture4The Best Albums of 2018

PublicationRankList
The A.V. Club27The 50 Best Albums of the 2010s
Billboard6The 100 Greatest Albums of the 2010s
Billboard3The 25 Best Country Albums of the 2010s
Cleveland.com12100 Greatest Albums of the 2010s
Consequence of Sound85The 100 Top Albums of the 2010s
Paste9The 100 Best Albums of the 2010s
Pitchfork23The 200 Best Albums of the 2010s
Rolling Stone11The 100 Best Albums of the 2010s
Uproxx11The Best Albums of the 2010s

Commercial performance

Golden Hour debuted at number four on the US Billboard 200 and at number one on the Top Country Albums chart with 49,000 album-equivalent units—39,000 of that figure being pure album sales in its first week. It marks Musgraves’ third number one on the Top Country Albums chart. It also debuted at number one on the Americana/Folk Albums chart. In the chart week following the 61st Grammy Awards, where Golden Hour won Album of the Year, the album returned to the top-10, climbing to number nine on the chart, selling 35,000 copies. In February 2019, the album has reached 310,000 in equivalent album units and on June 28, 2019, the album was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over 500,000 units in the United States. The album has sold 264,400 copies in the United States as of October 2019, and 735,000 units consumed as of February 2020.
In the United Kingdom, Golden Hour debuted at number six on the official UK Albums chart and at number one on the UK Country Albums chart. It marks Musgraves' first top ten album in the UK.

Track listing

Credits adapted from liner notes.
All tracks are produced by Daniel Tashian, Ian Fitchuk, and Kacey Musgraves.

Personnel

Credits adapted from liner notes.
Instrumentation
Technical
Artwork

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Chart Position
US Billboard 20086
US Americana/Folk Albums 2
US Top Country Albums 7

Certifications

Release history