Kacey Musgraves Weighs In After Grammys Rule Her Ineligible for Best Country Album

Kacey Musgraves has spoken out on Instagram and Twitter after her new album star-crossed was deemed ineligible for inclusion in the best country album category for next year’s Grammy Awards. And it’s safe to say she disagrees with the decision.

“You can take the girl out of the country (genre) but you can’t take the country out of the girl,” Musgraves captioned a photo of herself as a child in a pink cowboy hat.  That image shows up on Twitter, but on Instagram, it’s just the start of the story.

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On Instagram, the image of Musgraves as a cowboy-hat clad girl is followed by a series of photos of her with such country legends as Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Ronnie Milsap, George Strait, Reba Entire, Alan Jackson, Brooks & Dunn and more. In each one, she tags the artists and follows her initial remark with “ain’t that right, Loretta Lynn?” or “What about you, Dolly?” She then ends with a photo of her performing, guitar strapped on and extending her two middle fingers in the air.

Musgraves’ 2018 album, Golden Hour, took home not only the all-genre album of the year Grammy honor, but also best country album at the 2019 ceremony, while the album’s “Butterflies” was named best country solo performance and “Space Cowboy” was named best country song. As with Golden Hour, Musgraves collaborated with co-writers and co-producers Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk on star-crossed. Musgraves has earned six Grammy wins to date, including another win for best country album in 2014 for Same Trailer, Different Park.

On Tuesday, Cindy Mabe, the president of Musgraves’ label home UMG Nashville, took the Recording Academy’s country genre screening committee to task for the decision.

In a letter obtained by Billboard, Mabe stated, “Sonically, it’s got more country instrumentation than Golden Hour which won Country Album of the Year in 2019. To compare Golden Hour to star-crossed, both albums were produced by Ian Fitchuk, Daniel Tashian and Kacey Musgraves. Both albums were mixed by Shawn Everett. On Golden Hour, Ian, Daniel and Kacey wrote 7 of the 13 songs and on star-crossed they wrote 11 of the 15. Both albums complete each other with Golden Hour telling the story of falling in love and star-crossed telling the conclusion of the breakup. There is no departure in sound from these two projects. This album was consistently classified as country throughout it’s [sic] metadata and overall labeling across the DSP accounts and partners. star-crossed appeared on every major country playlist of every DSP.”

star-crossed was released Sept. 10 via a joint venture between Interscope Records and Universal Music Group Nashville’s MCA Nashville imprint. The album bowed at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart and at No. 1 on the Top Country Albums chart.