you know we are counting down the 100 best albums of all time Casey musk Graves it is an impossible task I mean is's no other way to put it there really isn't any hierarchy here any definitive list that will ever sum up music but uh it's a fun process it's a fun and it's a taxing process and uh how do we even do that how do you even do that is a great
question I'm not even sure we figured it out yet but we've landed on 100 albums We Stand By and it's been voted for um by a really great group of people who have been handpicked with great taste and um Casey you know I don't know if this comes as a surprise to you it didn't come as a surprise to me or many of us that golden hour um sits on this
new revised list of the 100 best albums of all time that's insane what it's not though it's not though and I'll tell you why I have a theory about this as a fan of this album and a fan of you I think I'm qualified to say this one thing you know it was time it was timely when it came out but it was Timeless the day it came out as well it was an album that I
knew immediately from the quality of the songwriting and the way that you and your friends had lovingly aranged and produced the music to bring these stories to life that this was a Timeless Timeless tribute to love thank you thank you for saying that you know it's funny because I remember being really nervous when I was going to release that record
I had made it and I knew that it made me feel really good but I had honestly kind of really stepped out and tried something different for myself like the the record previous is pageant material which is like I was a lot younger and like this record was um you know really an homage to to like the you know the kind of the country politon like this
like the great like the great country era like the Glenn Campbell and um you know even like some of the Marty Robbins and like it was really country and I love that record with my whole heart like it was so fun for me and then like a few years went by and I really didn't know what I wanted to do I was like um you know I felt a little bit lost and uh
I changed collaborators and like I have so much love for the people I made the first two records with but um but I just stepped out tried something new and like I just imagine this world where like you know um these intrinsic country instrument instruments could live hand inand with like vocoder and um you know things like that and a lot of synth like
some layers and um kind of like yeah a new a little bit of a new country world but like my foot kind of still rooted in the country music parts that I love and I just remember thinking like oh my God like are people going to be like what is the you know she's gone electric like she's gone Bob Dylan is anyone offended me so much with perfect pop music yeah did you know
at the time when you were making this record regardless of how you thought might people might react one way or the other that this would ultimately and it has done Casey and I can say this even if you want to take an a Very typical humble approach to this comment it ushered in you know a a a new broader canvas for for country music to be able
to play in I I really do think this is a really important album sonically and ideas wise the songwriting is always there but just to give people the courage that hey we can play in a pop space and not feel like we're making a statement right yeah I don't really believe that you need to like leave a genre I think some of the best careers of all time have kind of created their
own genre I mean what the were the Beatles they were their own thing what were the Eagles like you know it's um and so I love and I'm very thankful to have the creative freedom to move kind of seamlessly between the things that inspire me and like you know I might put off pageant material which is like as country as you can get and then you know
golden golden AR might point a little bit more in a different direction Star Cross was kind of back over there again and then like and then deeper well kind of pulled me in a little closer to home and and it's so fun to make music like that you know I think about this album and it it is such a time and a place for you I'm sure like all albums are and it
is for me and everyone who heard it the first time but one of the things that that that will always ring true about this album is that it remains a tribute for anyone falling in love at any moment in their life it doesn't have to be just about that love story that you wrote about either it can be my love story or his love story or her love story and it
shows up when it's needed and that's why it's Timeless well I appreciate you saying that because I think as you know as creatives we can get kind of stuck in the notion that we have to be suffering in order to create good art and I that's really bothersome to me because it's only one color in the palette you know and there was I was like 27 26 20 you
know I was like you know getting married and I was like falling head ever heals in love with this person and although that relationship didn't end up being like a right fit for me as I got older and needed to grow um it's truly a tribute to those emotions that I will and have experienced again and again and it's just yeah it's it's yeah it's beautiful in that way it's a beautiful
um piece of identity work as well from a human point of view not just an artist point of view um there's some letting go in this um the idea that you can just sit down and you can indulge in areas um psychedelically or otherwise to find something that you want to say I'm Letting Go I'm not stuck in a framework of like you know what I mean the point
is is that is that slow Burns for me as as well as a really generous and caring introduction to this beautiful body of work to me it it it remains kind of like quite an important Cornerstone of of your song book it I feel like it's something that that as a fan I can refer to as you go through life and know that it it's kind of a friend to other songs
if that makes any sense to you I just wanted your thoughts on that well it's funny because you know in a lot of my earlier writing I was like you know I'm a big fan of songwriters like John Pry he's turning a phrase he is like he's so quick wted and I love that kind of stuff he's making people laugh and um I really love writing a lot of songs like that
but I really tried to challenge myself with the golden hour record I remember trying to get out of my head as much and getting more into my body and like you know feeling my way through the music more and writing from more of like sort of a stream of Consciousness like perspective and that song for sure was was in that kind of a a a place whenever
um whenever I wrote it and uh yeah I you know what's funny is like I I feel so Zen like when that first when I strum that first boord I literally just played this song like 15 minutes ago and I I don't care where I am or what mood I'm in there's something in those cords that just makes me feel so at home and it it's in this key that like really resonates with like I don't know hard
Chalker or whatever the hell it is but it feels so good there's something magic about that about that moment about you singing that song and that key and what it is and how you sound and that's what I mean it feels to me when I when you when I press play on this album I am I I kind of elevate I think people levitate a little bit when this song
starts good this album went on to not only achieve great things for you in terms of your growth and the sense that you it's a wide open spaces we established before canvas to paint new things on new brush Strokes um but it it didn't actually do any of the things you perhaps were concerned about in terms of um encouraging people to to fight back push back what is this you know a
hard-earned victory it it it people fell over themselves in love with this album and and I wonder what you leared about yourself knowing that you took what what fans probably considered to be a risk at the time ultimately ended up becoming the beginning of this whole new era of of who Casey Musgraves is to people I think whenever you get success
or you find something that works or something has a moment and you know it just does somehow it's like I think you can go kind of one of two ways like you can you can think from a scarcity perspective and go like oh my God this album it happened to one like when album of the year like I have to do that again with the next thing or this is going to
be a failure or you can be like you know what no I'm going to zoom out and like really the reason why that one album of the year is because I was I was not thinking of anything but what felt really good to me and like my heart at the time and I don't know I just think it's an important reminder as a creative it's like it can be scary to think like
what if I don't do that thing again or what you know and um I think it it it it was that record for me it it felt so good to make and I just truly wasn't sure for some reason if like people were other people were going to like it and it was just it was nice to know that like when the only compass that you follow is the one that feels authentic to you and like really real to like
really what you're going through these human emotions like it's going to connect with people because we're all going through the same and we all crave the same things and um and I think there's a lot of like there's a lot of stuff out there that misses me because it feels like it's missing a soul and it's missing a heart and that's ultimately is the sign of something that
I think should be successful and the stuff that connects with me is because I'm like I can see the heartbeat I can feel the heartbeat and there it is you know it's not just a passing Trend or whatever no it's magic it's a there's a connective tissue that immediately aligns me or any of us to this music and it becomes a companion it it actually
ends up becoming you know a part of our not just our lives but our lifestyle totally yeah I mean like there you know these songs become it's so trippy you know it's like they come from somewhere else I really think that creators are just a channel a vessel to receive some sort of you know lightting bolt idea and it's up to you to decide if you're going
to you know want to use it or not and you shape it to your liking and you put it out there and it connects to people of all different kinds like in their own ways and like there's nothing more magical than that and I'm really grateful that I get to have that experience on this Earth thank you so much for this album and um we're so happy to be able to talk about it with
you in relation to this list because um you know it's important that we reflect the albums that continue to to hold their place decade after decade after decade but I also want to live in a world where an album that came out on March 30th 2018 should take its place on a list like this because this will continue to find people Casey this album
and I think deep down you know that and it's been lovely to talk with you as always mate well thank you what a huge compliment I am so honored to be you know I have I haven't seen this list but I would imagine there are some um pretty powerful mother on that list and so I'm like pretty powerful mother on this list you know I'm like I'll take it