COUNTRY MUSIC IS RIDING HIGH. MIRANDA LAMBERT IS IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT.

Country superstar Miranda Lambert is taking a major step toward becoming a music mogul, with a new industry partner, a big showcase at one of the world’s premier festivals and her very own label.The Texas singer-songwriter on Tuesday announced a new partnership with Universal Music Group’s Republic Records, the No. 1 label in the music business by market share and home to Taylor Swift and Drake.This weekend, she headlines Stagecoach, the country cousin of the Coachella music festival that also takes place in Indio, Calif., along with Morgan Wallen and Eric Church.And in November she launched her own label, Big Loud Texas, in partnership with Nashville-based Big Loud Records, through which she will sign and develop young country acts.“All of this fell into place at such an important time for me,” Lambert said in an interview. “Music is what I want to work on, but not always my own.”Lambert’s growing footprint comes amid the biggest country-music boom since the 1990s.

A new wave of stars like the genre-blurring Wallen has conquered streaming, building followings outside country’s traditional focus on radio. That’s making country the fastest-growing streaming genre in the U.S., according to data tracker Luminate. Meanwhile, acts like Luke Combs (who recently covered Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car”) and the stripped-back, emo-ish Zach Bryan have become live-music juggernauts, while new names like Lainey Wilson and Dasha are playing non-country festivals such as Lollapalooza and popping off on TikTok.

The broader culture is partaking too: Superstars Beyoncé, Lana Del Rey and Post Malone are dabbling in country sounds. Country events are a hot ticket in cities like Los Angeles with hipsters hitting clubs dressed in cowboy boots and embroidered shirts. Even “Saturday Night Live” earlier this month had a country-themed skit featuring musical guest Chris Stapleton.Country has experienced periods of widespread embrace before—rock bands like the Rolling Stones exploring country in the 1960s; the “Urban Cowboy” craze of the late 1970s and early 1980s; Garth Brooks, Shania Twain and the Chicks in the 1990s. But this time the borders between country and other genres are more porous than ever. More listeners, unshackled by genre prejudices, now listen to Morgan Wallen and Drake, to Miranda Lambert and Beyoncé.“Country was always the genre that sat in the back seat, and that was frustrating sometimes,” Lambert said. “But this all has changed…All of a sudden, everyone’s wearing cowboy hats and loving country music.”

One of the biggest country stars of the 21st century, Lambert mixes mainstream sounds with aspects of 1970s-style outlaw country, crafting poignant, rollicking hits like “Famous in a Small Town.” Over time, her perky approach (“What doesn’t kill you only makes you blonder,” she jokes on her Grammy-winning 2014 album “Platinum”) has mellowed into a more introspective singer-songwriter style (especially on 2016’s double-album “The Weight of These Wings”).

Now she’s shifting gears in her career, too. Since she’s not grinding as hard on the road—she became tired of intensive touring and recently completed a Las Vegas residency—the 40-year-old has time for other things, like guiding a new generation of talent via her new label. “You sometimes need to call somebody at one in the morning on the bus, and vent, or cry, or freak out, or whatever it is—or celebrate,” she said. “I just want to be a mentor, someone that’s an ear and a shoulder.”

With Big Loud Texas, which she spearheaded with her musical collaborator Jon Randall, Lambert might sometimes co-write with artists, if it makes sense. So far, Big Loud Texas has set up offices in Austin and signed its first artist: 25-year-old Austin native Dylan Gossett, whom Lambert checks in on frequently. Lambert said she wanted the label to boast a diverse roster, providing a home for rootsier artists like those making “red dirt” music, a country subgenre associated with Oklahoma and Texas.

When it comes to her own music, Lambert, after spending 20 years at different labels under the Sony umbrella, will now license her music to Republic Records, part of Sony’s rival music conglomerate, Universal Music Group. (Licensing her music means Lambert owns her sound recordings and gives Republic the right to distribute them for a certain number of albums or years, as opposed to Republic owning the recordings.) As part of the deal, Big Loud, which sometimes teams up with Republic, will help out with country-radio promotion and other marketing.Lambert’s current focus is on finishing her next album, which is expected this fall. A new song, “Wranglers,” about a woman reclaiming her power, arrives May 3. “It’s pretty honky-tonk,” Lambert said of her upcoming album, which she and Randall co-produced in Austin. “It definitely sounds like Texas to me.”

Her previous record, 2022’s Grammy-nominated “Palomino,” “was a traveling record, it was a journey,” Lambert said.

“This record feels like I made it home.”

Write to Neil Shah at [email protected]

2024-04-23T12:02:45Z dg43tfdfdgfd