Women won the 61st annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, especially country songstress Kacey Musgraves as she walked away with the coveted Album of the Year award. However, will the singer's big win boost her chances of her latest album receiving more radio play?
Musgraves, 30, won four Grammys on Sunday for her third record Golden Hour. She received Best Country Album, Best Country Solo Performance for "Butterflies" and Best Country Song for "Space Cowboy" alongside Album of the Year. Despite scoring the night's biggest awards, Golden Hour—as well as her previous albums Same Trailer Different Park and Pageant Material—hasn't received much support from country radio.
After concluding her Album of the Year speech, Musgraves spoke with reporters backstage about whether winning top honors will increase her chances of radio play.
"To me, radio isn't necessarily the mark of what makes good music," Musgraves said, according to Fox News. "That's not what I had in mind when I was making this album. It's been really amazing and incredible to see it do some really wild, gratifying, unbelievable things—going further than I ever thought that it could. I'm just really thankful. I think streaming was a big part of it...My publicist for working his ass off. My band and my road family working very hard."
"And ultimately, I feel like it just lets me know that it doesn't really matter where someone hears your music, it's if they connect or not," she added.
The "Rainbow" singer was shocked when her name was called by Grammys host Alicia Keys for the night's biggest award. Musgraves, who was up against nominees like Kendrick Lamar's Black Panther soundtrack and Janelle Monae's Dirty Computer, was at a loss for words when giving her speech.
"Oh my god, oh my god. I don't even know what to say," she began, "It was unbelievable to be even in a category with such gigantic albums, really brilliant works of art. It's really crazy, but I'm very thankful. I know that winning this doesn't make my album any better than anybody else's in that category. They're all so good."
Musgraves continued, "Life is pretty tumultuous right now for all of us, I feel like it can be that way. And I feel like because of that, art is really thriving and it's been really beautiful to see that. Thank you for championing mine. I would have nothing without songs. To me, it's just all about the songs."
When Golden Hour premiered in March 2018, it didn't make much of a dent on Billboard's Country Radio chart during its premiere week, Refinery29 reported. She has proven to be a rule breaker in the country genre since dropping her debut single "Follow Your Arrow" in 2013, which is a track that highlights her support for the LGBTQ community. She's also been vocal about her marijuana use and how an LSD trip helped her pen "Slow Burn" for Golden Hour.
In speaking to theHuffington Post in March 2018, she claimed she will never abide by the rules when it comes to creating her music.
"There can be this attitude of having to prove how country you are ... and letting that be what defines your sound, and really being a stickler to that," Musgraves told the Huffington Post. "And I just I think that can be dangerous. I refuse to play that game, to be in that contest."
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Dory Jackson is a New York-based entertainment journalist from Maryland. She graduated from Randolph-Macon College—in May 2016—with a focus in Communication ... Read more
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