Dear listeners,
On Friday, Kacey Musgraves released a very good new album called “Middle of Nowhere,” a characteristically idiosyncratic return to her country roots. (I reviewed it, and named it a Critic’s Pick.) One of my favorite of its songs is “Horses and Divorces,” a biting, hilarious and beautifully sung duet with her fellow country star and — as Musgraves recently admitted — former rival Miranda Lambert.
In a world full of fake niceness, there is something refreshing about two artists admitting that they just didn’t like each other — and something even more refreshing about hearing them overcome those feelings, with self-effacing humor, on a song. (They wrote it with Shane McAnally, one of the Nashville scribes we recently interviewed for The New York Times Magazine’s 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters package.)
After trading a few good-natured barbs, the duet finds Musgraves and Lambert at the bottom of a shared bottle, realizing, “We’ve got a few things in common, like horses and divorces and we both like to drink / Maybe we’re more alike than we think.” Like Charli XCX and Lorde before them, they worked it out on the remix.
It’s also refreshing just to hear two female country stars sing together. Though country music has a grand tradition of male-female duets — think George & Tammy, Johnny & June or Loretta & Conway — there are far fewer songs that explore any of the complex dynamics that can arise between two women. Still, there are a handful of great ones, and in honor of “Horses and Divorces,” I compiled some of them on today’s playlist.
You’ll hear another song featuring Lambert (perhaps one of the most prolific current country stars, when it comes to duetting with other women), and a song that features an impassioned vocal from Ashley McBryde, a Nashville maverick with a hard-edged, deeply felt new album, “Wild,” coming out on Friday. (I recommend David Peisner’s new profile of her.) There are some classics in the mix, too, including an epic ballad that finds Reba McEntire squaring off with Linda Davis, along with Lainey Wilson and Dolly Parton’s take on an ’80s country standard.
Got a real good feeling somethin’ bad about to happen,
Lindsay
Listen along while you read.
1. Kacey Musgraves and Miranda Lambert: “Horses and Divorces”
“I’d ride in on my high horse, you’d still be higher,” Miranda Lambert sings, referencing a 2018 Kacey Musgraves single — and one of her preferred vices. Musgraves counters, with perfect timing, “And a few years ago, you’d have set me on fire.” But then they shrug and decide, “It’s all whiskey under the bridge.” Thank goodness these two found common ground, because their voices sound lovely together.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
2. Carly Pearce and Ashley McBryde: “Never Wanted to Be That Girl”
The country singer-songwriters Carly Pearce and Ashley McBryde won a Grammy and a CMA for this stirring and remarkably empathic collaboration, in which they sing from the perspectives of two women who love the same (lying) man. They have something else in common, too: The experience causes both to confront their own girlhood ideals. “I thought I knew who I was,” they sing, “but it’s getting hard to tell.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
3. Miranda Lambert with Carrie Underwood: “Somethin’ Bad”
Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood channel “Thelma & Louise” on this sassy rocker from Lambert’s 2014 album, “Platinum” — a rare country duet that celebrates friendship between two women. When it hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, it became the first collaboration between two female solo artists to do so in more than two decades.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
4. Maren Morris featuring Brandi Carlile: “Common”
A more serious take on the theme explored on “Horses and Divorces” — that maybe our rivals aren’t as different from us as we think — this 2019 track pairs Maren Morris and Brandi Carlile, two singers whose voices possess equal parts twang and grit. Just a month after this song was released on Morris’s eclectic second album, “Girl,” she and Carlile announced that they would be working together much more as part of the all-female supergroup the Highwomen, which also features Amanda Shires and Natalie Hemby.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. Lainey Wilson and Dolly Parton: “Mama He’s Crazy”
While you could argue that just about every song released by the mother-daughter duo the Judds was an all-female duet, I’m not sure the original version of this 1984 country classic actually qualifies, since the song’s entire perspective is rooted in the lead vocal of Wynonna Judd. When Lainey Wilson and Dolly Parton covered it on a 2023 tribute album, though, they effectively reimagined it as a duet — with the fun twist that Parton is not playing the “Mama” role but confessing her own infatuation with a man who’s “crazy” over her.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. Reba McEntire and Linda Davis: “Does He Love You”
Finally, this gloriously melodramatic 1993 hit imagines a conversation between a cheating man’s wife (the role sung by Reba McEntire) and his mistress (Linda Davis), each of whom believe the grass is greener on the other side. (McEntire has performed it with several other female artists over the years, including Dolly Parton and Kelly Clarkson.) The music video is every bit as over-the-top and quintessentially ’90s as the song itself, and it features, at the very end, a surprising cameo from — of all people! — the great Rob Reiner.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
The Amplifier Playlist
“6 Stellar All-Female Country Duets” track list Track 1: Kacey Musgraves and Miranda Lambert, “Horses and Divorces” Track 2: Carly Pearce and Ashley McBryde, “Never Wanted to Be That Girl” Track 3: Miranda Lambert with Carrie Underwood, “Somethin’ Bad” Track 4: Maren Morris featuring Brandi Carlile, “Common” Track 5: Lainey Wilson and Dolly Parton, “Mama He’s Crazy” Track 6: Reba McEntire and Linda Davis, “Does He Love You”
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Lindsay Zoladz is a pop music critic for The Times and writes the music newsletter The Amplifier.
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