#480: The Weight of These Wings [Miranda Lambert, 2016]

Are country musicians the new rockstars?. no-one is quite sure when or why, but rock in the mainstream died over the past two decades. Over the same time, country has become more and more influenced by rock, to the point where ronky tonk is the newest trend of the 2020s. Country rock is of course not new, but it's notable that there are more electric guitar solos on Lambert’s 6th album than on the latest Imagine Dragons record. Lambert is still firmly entrenched in the country tradition, with the typical boy-girl duets and lyrics about church, family and Texas, but her songs have a certain pop-rock bombast which prevent this 2 hour double album from dragging. The album does have some poor songs, the cheesy Highway Vagabond, the camp Pink Sunglasses and For the Birds with its the woeful backup singers. It does slow down a bit in the second half, where Lambert self-indulgently wallows in her heartbreak, but picks up just on time on Bad Boy to bring the album to a satisfying end. 3.5/5.