Miranda Lambert Returned to Her Early Years With Confident ‘Wildcard’ Record

What’s old is new again, at least when it comes to Miranda Lambert and her music. The country music superstar just dropped Wildcard, her seventh studio album, but in many ways – and all the best ways – it reminded her of her freshman Kerosene, released in 2005.

“I feel like this record, I came at it with the same confidence and hunger that I came at with Kerosene, which was over a decade ago,” Lambert shared in a video she posted on social media. “14 years ago I put that out. But I felt like this record, out of all of them I’ve made, had the same energy and hopefulness to it, but still a little bit of the gritty, scorned woman feel, that is why i have a career. I feel like I balanced it really well on this record, but it still feels full circle to me, back to the root of everything.”

Lambert dropped Wildcard on Friday, Nov. 1, marking her first new set of tunes in three years, since The Weight of These Wings was released in 2016. Much has changed in her life since then, including her marriage to Brendan McLoughlin earlier this year.

“Life takes its turns where it will and sometimes they’re not your favorite turns, but being a songwriter, I can use those life experiences sort of as therapy,” Lambert told PopCulture.com. “I’m so thankful for that, because I think it really is a healing process too. But definitely coming out of The Weight of These Wings into Wildcard is a totally different vibe and kind of feels like a little bit of the old me.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever strayed from, 2005 is when my first song record came out, Kerosene, and I don’t think I’m really that different at all,” she added, joking, “Now, I might just have calmed down just a bit.”

Lambert is happy to tell her stories, the good and the bad, in her music, although she is grateful for everything that is going so well in her life right now.

“I definitely think whatever’s going on in my life is reflected in my music all the time,” noted Lambert. “The best part of country music in general though, we tell our stories no matter what they are. So having some happier, more hopeful songs on this record is definitely a reflection of getting happy in life.”

Photo Credit: Jeff Kravitz / ACMA2019