Maren Morris has a new album on the way soon.
After the ACM Awards this past Sunday, the Female Artist of the Year winner told the media that she’s been in the studio working on a new project… and it’s gonna sound more like her Texas country roots.
Of course, Maren’s last album was far from anything that resembled Texas country (or country at all really), and she even said it herself in the post-show press conference:
“I’m kind of halfway there, I think the bulk of the songs are in… my last record was very pop leaning.”
Pop-leaning might be an understatement, but pop or not, she’s been a force in the mainstream world over the last few years, winning back to back ACM Female Artist of the Year awards, as well as a CMA Best Female Vocalist.
But according to her, this next one will get back to her Texas roots:
“With this next one I’m sort of coming back to this Texas, rootsy style that I grew up in.
And so I think that it’s got a lot of Americana elements, a lot of rootsiness, it just feels like me, but a stripped down version of me. It’s still extremely fun and energetic, so it was kind of a little bit of everything.
“It would be a good record to drive to, to get ready to out on a Saturday night to, or even to cook to. It kind of hits all those marks.”
With that description, I’ll be very interested to hear what she comes up with. It’s always encouraging (at least) to hear an interest by these uber-successful mainstream artists to make music with a more traditional country approach and sound… after all, this is country music…
It remains to be seen what Maren exactly means by “Texas,” “rootsy” and “Americana,” but you can at least color me intrigued.
We’ve started to see this slight shift back towards the traditional in mainstream country, and regardless of what actually comes out of it, the idea in and of itself at least sounds promising, especially from one of the most pop-leaning artists in the genre.
Of course, Thomas Rhett’s upcoming album is titled Country Again, and so far, has leaned much closer to the country sounds he began his career with. The jury is still out on the rest of the album…
And while there’s no word on when the album is officially going to be released, I have to say, I wouldn’t mind a little bit more of this from Maren:
