Pageant Material
Pageant Material is the second studio album by American country music artist Kacey Musgraves, released June 23, 2015, through Mercury Nashville.[1][2] Musgraves co-wrote all 13 tracks and co-produced the album with Luke Laird and Shane McAnally.[3][4] The album made numerous "Best Albums of 2015" lists and was nominated for Best Country Album at the 58th Grammy Awards.[5][6]
Pageant Material
Recording[edit]
Most of Pageant Material was recorded live in Nashville's historic RCA Studio A. In an interview with The Boot published May 21, 2015, Musgraves describes the recording process: "We recorded most everything in a big circle in one of my favorite old studios on the planet – historic RCA Studio A in Nashville. That lent itself to the record having that concise feel that we wanted. Then we added a 10-piece string section later."[7]
Promotion and packaging[edit]
Promotional appearances in the media to support the album included performances on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (June 9, 2015), Late Night with Seth Meyers (June 10, 2015), Good Morning America (June 23, 2015), The View (June 24, 2015), Jimmy Kimmel Live! (September 14, 2015), The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (January 8, 2016) and The Late Late Show with James Corden (April 6, 2016).[8][9][10][11] On June 26, 2015, Musgraves performed "Follow Your Arrow" for National Public Radio's Tiny Desk Concerts in support of the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States, which took place on the same day.[12]
To further support the album, Musgraves embarked on the Kacey Musgraves Country & Western Rhinestone Revue concert tour. Described as a "throwback country" tour, dates on the first leg included locations across the United States and Europe. The first leg of the tour began on August 27, 2015, in Atlanta, Georgia, and concluded on November 22, 2015, in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The second leg of the tour, which spanned portions of the US, UK and Ireland began in Dallas, TX on January 21, 2016, and concluded in Columbia, MO, on April 30, 2016.
Musgraves' younger sister, Kelly Christine Sutton, is credited with the album cover's photograph and design.[13]
Commercial performance[edit]
Pageant Material debuted at number three on the US Billboard 200 chart with 60,000 equivalent album units; it sold 55,000 copies in its first week, with the remainder of its unit total reflecting the album's streaming activity and track sales. It marked Musgraves' best week of album sales to date.[50] As of September 2016, the album has sold 179,400 copies in the US.[51]
All tracks are produced by Luke Laird, Shane McAnally, and Kacey Musgraves.
Notes