Margo Price, the anti-star of 'country'

2023-06-10T04:55:18.742Z

Highlights: The singer escapes her destiny as queen of the genre with a new album that avoids any attempt at coronation. Margo Price (Aledo, Illinois, 39 years old) fell a sambenito: to be the next country star. The New York magazine The Fader, influential in American melomania, awarded Price that title when he had published in 2020 his remarkable album That's How Rumors Get Started. On his new album, Price uses the roots sounds of country to confront them with rock, psychedelia and even alternative pop.

The singer escapes her destiny as queen of the genre with a new album that avoids any attempt at coronation, alternating the 'Americana' with pop, psychedelia or even electronic

Margo Price (Aledo, Illinois, 39 years old) fell a sambenito: to be the next country star. The New York magazine The Fader, influential in American melomania, awarded Price that title when he had published in 2020 his remarkable album That's How Rumors Get Started. Soon after, other media and fans ventured to expect from her that status in a country that is always in need of stars, and even more so in the cowboy musical genre, a style so typical of the American DNA. Difficult to be a star, or to have motivations to want to reach a crown, when this singer and songwriter has a tattoo on her left foot that is barely visible and in which you can read: "Gypsy vagabond of the world". Price doesn't belong to anyone.

As with the labels "the future of rock" or "the great hope of folk," that of the "next country star" is more of a slab than a boost to any career. Margo Price knows this and, therefore, assures that she does not make music to please others. Nor to meet other people's expectations. "I don't expect everyone to understand what I'm doing," he explains via email. "And that's empowering," he says. Price has just released Strays (Loma Vista / Music As Usual), a fourth album in which, from flirtations with psychedelia and the production of Jonathan Wilson (Angel Olsen, Father John Misty or Dawes), he stands out from any attempt at country coronation. His renunciation is daring: he does what he wants, how he wants and when he wants.

"Rebellion is a sign of true intelligence and I've been going against the grain since the first day I arrived in Nashville," he confesses. "All of my heroes pushed the boundaries of the genre and I'm just trying to live up to their job. I'm talking about Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter and Linda Martell. They built the legacy of the outlaws. And I'm doing everything I can to keep building and expanding that. I know sometimes certain people have said I'm extreme or too outside the box, but I don't make music for everybody."

Strays is composed of 10 songs that are pure reflection of that other music that is not for everyone. At least, it is not for the current Nashville industry, a powerful conglomerate of record labels, agents, radio stations and promoters who are responsible for promoting an entire cowboy leisure culture, very narrow-minded, obsessed to the paroxysm with cowboy aesthetics and emptied of reflective content. On his new album, Price uses the roots sounds of country to confront them with rock, psychedelia and even alternative pop. A pedal steel sounds and then can be recreated with a moog synthesizer or an electronic drum machine. He is not afraid. For all this, he uses prominent names that move away from the precepts of Nashville: the unclassifiable Sharon Van Etten, the indie band Lucius – with which the beautiful 'Anytime You Call' is marked – and the veteran rocker Mike Campbell, prodigious guitarist and right hand of the late Tom Petty. "Mike is one of my heroes and having him by my side has given me a lot of confidence to go out and approach other genres, like rock and roll and psychedelia. We all love him very much. He played the lead role in one take and melted our brains."

Price comes from what is known as East Nashville, an area of the city where a whole series of artists with a rebellious spirit have been installed in the twenty-first century. Musicians who follow in the wake of the first outlaws, those names that created the outlaw movement of country in the seventies and who in the eighties and nineties were followed by independent battlers such as Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell or Lucinda Williams. The influence is so powerful that the outlaw movement has recently been renewed with a group of women full of pundonor, among which is Price herself and Nikki Lane, Jaime Wyatt and Sierra Ferrell, with whom she has made her latest collaboration.

"Quitting alcohol has been transformative. I have more energy and feel my emotions in a deeper way."

In a way, Margo Price is, of all the new generation, the most logical continuation of the great legacy represented by Lucinda Williams, already a veteran on the circuit. In fact, Williams blesses her and has raved about Maybe We'll Make It: A Memoir, Price's autobiography about all his ups and downs in life and music. She, like Williams, knows what it's like to close more bars than anyone else and fell into the hell of alcohol addiction, as she recounts in her book. Today, Margo, who has found stability with Jeremy Ivey – her husband and close songwriting collaborator – is clean and does not taste a drop: "It has been transformative. I have more time, energy and feel my emotions in a deeper, more raw way. I love it."

A woman who is now more in control of herself and an artist who sets her own rules and does not shut up. In Strays, Price not only claims an emancipatory feminine vision in the country, but speaks of family abandonment, harmful men and even charge against savage capitalism for accelerating climate change. "I've been trying to write powerful, topical songs for years, but it takes a lot of practice to get it right. I have always admired writers who tried subliminally and bluntly to send a message to listeners. We're not going to be on this earth for long, so we should try to make positive changes and influence people to do good when we can."

If Margo Price is the next country star, then she's here to blow it up. "My philosophy is to not be afraid to take risks, to get weird or to be vulnerable and different," she says. The Nashville gypsy tramp has six other tattoos, including drawings of an arrow, a buffalo skull and an eagle. But it is on his left side where another is seen with words that read: "Give me back the pieces of my heart." In view of the results, today, everything indicates that he has all the pieces back and knows very well who he is and what he wants: "There is another important point of my current philosophy: 'Do not be afraid to love'. That's what we're here for."

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