Kacey Musgraves popped up on my radar earlier this year with the release of her major label debut Same Trailer Different Park, one of those funny records that’s so effortlessly smart and sure-footed it makes everything else in its category look totally insubstantial by comparison. (The category is mainstream country, although there’s a rootsy, alternative edge to Musgraves’ music, as well as a pop sensibility that lends it a certain degree of crossover potential.) The production is airy and spare, making space for her lyrics to shine — and those lyrics dazzle as frequently as they devastate, sharply observed, witty, heartbreaking missives on the perils of intimacy and the insularity of small-town life.

Despite well-deserved critical acclaim, Musgraves’ songs have a way of subverting country convention that hasn’t always gone down so easy with conservative listeners and industry types. Consider “Follow Your Arrow,” a laissez-faire anthem built on this hook: “Make lots of noise and kiss lots of boys / Or kiss lots of girls if that’s what you’re into / And if the straight and narrow gets a little too straight / Roll up a joint, or don’t, just follow your arrow wherever it points.” Its genius isn’t in courting controversy in the heartland by espousing drug use or homosexuality, but in the breezy dismissal of either being anyone’s business — and at her set at Bonnaroo this weekend (a just-do-you environment if ever there was one), the song’s lyrics elicited roars of approval from the crowd, and more than a few delighted smiles from people who appeared to be hearing the song for the first time. More »